Thursday, March 15, 2012

A Good Reason to Take up Piano


According to a group of Canadian scientists who specialize in learning, memory and language in children have found evidence that pre-schoolers can improve their verbal intelligence after only 20 days of classroom instruction using interactive, music-based cognitive training cartoons.

As reported in Robert Whent’s blog, “the study -- conducted at York University by Dr. Sylvain Moreno, who is now the Lead Scientist at Baycrest's Rotman Research Institute (RRI) Centre for Brain Fitness, showed that the cognitive benefit was striking and consistent in 90 per cent of the children who took the four-week learning program and was additionally confirmed by brain imaging data that indicated brain changes had taken place related to the training. "Our data have confirmed a rapid transfer of cognitive benefits in young children after only 20 days of training on an interactive, music-based cognitive training program. The strength of this effect in almost all of the children was remarkable," said Dr. Moreno.”

Will this work for brain damaged adults like me?  Who knows? But I doubt that it’d hurt.  So I’m adding to my inexhaustible to-do list the idea of revisiting my piano lessons of years ago.

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