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Musically Speaking, Did You Know?

Music positively affects all areas of development, unlike anything I have ever witnessed. Not only with the children, but with the grown-ups who love them, too.

• Music has more immunity-boosted potential when we actively participate…has the ability to calm and soothe. (Kuhn)
  


• Children's musical sensitivity is more comprehensive than we think. (Kokas)
  


• Music therapy has been demonstrated to directly help autistic-war traumatized-sexually abused-special needs-physically disable-low income-homeless children. (Hanna)
  


• Parent-child interactions possibly enhance attachment and the child's self-esteem having a positive effect on the child's competence (Guilmartin and Levinowitz)
  


• Combining language with movement increases cognition 90%. (Wolfe)
  


• Swinging, rocking vestibular activity (which children are doing less of) is related to highest level of thinking. (Firestone)
  


• Infants are born with innate ability to process musical sounds and patterns. Abilities must be nurtured through musical experiences or will be diminished, if not lost. (Healy)
  


• Infants and young children have selective windows of opportunity for optimal learning. This is especially true for music, since the ear is so ripe for aural language development from birth-3. (Begley)
  


• Preschool years are a time for socialization and play vs. mastery of abstract pre-academic tasks…caregivers need to make room for emotional lives of children. (Hanna)
  


• Music is best discovered in the body. Spontaneous movement frees the imagination. This freeing is a necessary prerequisite for great scientific discoveries and artistic accomplishment. Music is the language of emotions in the physical body that set the personality in motion. (Kokas)
  


• Music experiences can help children express difficult feelings, may allow them to address important issues that might otherwise arrest their normal development. (Hanna)
  


• Music nourishes as baby hears the voice, feels vibrations, smells familiar scents all while the vestibular system is being stimulated by rocking. (source unknown)
  


• Musical experiences provide sensory stimulation and multi-sensory learning, helping to recognize patterns and understand sequence. (source unknown)
  


• Exposure to music during the early years enhances the learning process by promoting language development, creativity, co-ordination, social interaction, self-esteem, auditory memory. It is the natural extension of children's expression. (source unknown)
  


• The brain develops as it wires, only way it can wire is through senses as it experiences the world. Novelty wakes it up. Repetition is crucial. Experience wires & repetition strengthens the connections. Environment plays major role in optimizing brain development. 70% is related to environment. Music offers opportunities for wiring on both sides of brain. (Schiller)
  


• Bedtime rituals provide greater emotional regulation at 24 months, opportunities for predictable patterns, protective factors in development, learning readiness skills from preschool to Kindergarten. (National Head Start Research & Evaluation Study-EHSRE)