ENG 1101- Lindsay Mason
Lindsay Mason
Dr. Harris
ENGL 1101
April 22, 2020
Making A Child Smart Before It Is Born
I have three children - all three of them very smart. That may sound like any mom talking about her kids, but in my case, it’s really true, and I'm not so sure it had that much to do with me.
Throughout their development, they have always accomplished their milestones before other children and have excelled in school beyond my expectations. This is honestly not bragging. It's quite the opposite. I believe I had little to do with their intelligence, many times wondering if it didn't actually have something to do with one specific thing I did differently from many moms during my pregnancies: Expose them to music.
You've likely heard about music being used as therapy in various aspects of human health. Well, so had I.
When I became pregnant for the first time almost 17 years ago, my thoughts quickly focused on becoming the best mother to my unborn child. Through research on what to expect during the pregnancy, what things to eat that would benefit the baby, what to do and not to do as physical labor, and on and on, I was determined to be the best mom ever. Yet, something stood out. There was plenty of information about my baby’s physical needs, but very little available about their intellectual development.
No books and magazines seemed to cover the topic. How could a pregnant mom help the development of her child's brain?
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| Pregnant Woman Using Headphones |
At the time, I never really found a formal answer. I had to come up with my own ideas. I have always loved music, all types of music. So, that seemed like a natural starting point. I went to a local music store and bought a headset and a portable CD player...remember, this was 17 years ago. I started playing music every day to my unborn child. Before long, it had become a routine. At first, it was all kinds of music, but then it became only classical. Surprisingly, my baby began reacting to the music being played. It may be hard to believe, but this little infant still inside the belly would start to move and jump the moment it heard music being played.
I continued to play music through my entire pregnancy, and also did so for my other two children. Call it the secret ingredient to my very smart children.
Music as therapy has been used for hundreds and even thousands of years. Few would argue that fact. However, beyond my anecdotal experience, is it possible to establish a scientific link between music during pregnancy and the intelligence or health of a child?
It is not commonly known, but music is actually very connected to mathematics. Since Ancient Greece, thinkers have been noting the mathematical nature of music, including philosophers like Plato (340). Math is made of patterns and as we listen to music is very easy to know that patterns also make music. Our brains are designed to recognize patterns. Elements of music like form, rhythm, pitches and notes can be related to the measurement of time and frequency, which relate to geometry in many ways.
Imagine how complex our brains are that when we are simply listening to a song and trying to keep up with the beat, our brains are actually interpreting patterns and awaking emotions of which we are not even aware. Because of the connection between music and math, many believe that certain forms of structured music (like classical music) can have a positive impact on the functioning of the brain.
In 1991, a French physician named Dr. Alfred A. Tomatis published a book called Pourquoi Mozart? (Why Mozart? (Sorenson) detailing how he had been successfully using classical music to help children with issues like dyslexia and ADD. He believed that by listening to the right music at different frequencies you could retrain your ear and heal and/or develop the brain (Thompson and Andrews, 174-188). This launched a movement called the Mozart Effect.
Don Campbell, a classical musician who has written more than 20 books on music, health and education, including The Mozart Effect and The Mozart Effect for Children says, “I know it [classical music] improves our ability to be intelligent” (Mozart Effect). Elsewhere, he says, “Music has a tremendous organizing quality to the brain.” He strongly recommends playing classical music to children, specifically Mozart, to help with learning.
In 1997, Frances Rauscher conducted a study of 25,000 high school students and compared the SAT scores of those who had received musical training on an instrument as a child with those who didn’t. The study found that those who had played a musical instrument scored up to 30% higher on the SAT and other exams than students who did not.
She says, “Music training, specifically piano instruction, is far superior to computer instruction in dramatically enhancing children’s abstract reasoning skills necessary for learning math and science. Learning music at an early age causes long-term enhancement of spatial-temporal reasoning” (Rauscher and Shaw, 1997). Because of this study, and others, the College Board (which manages the SAT testing) states publicly, “Students with coursework/experience in music performance and music appreciation scored higher on the SAT…than did students with no arts participation” (College-Bound Seniors National Report, 2001). Therefore, the connection between music and improved learning is very strong.
In the 1990’s, scientists began researching the connection between music and the biological aspects of the brain. They have discovered though the use of brain scans that musicians have larger planum temporale (region of the brain associated with reading skills). They also noticed that musicians have a thicker corpus callosum (nerve fibers that connect the two halves of the brain) (Schlaug et al, 417-418). These studies proved that music actively impacts the physical formation of the brain. Later, a different group of Japanese doctors concluded after a study that listening to music could cause neurons to regenerate and even repair themselves (Fukui, 4).
The effect of music on a fetus has also been researched in many different ways. In 2017, a group of scientists studied the cardiac activity parameters of fetuses in a cardiotocographic examination, with some fetuses exposed to music and others not. The results were highly motivating as they declared that “Music therapy on the fetus is a very noninvasive and uncostly method that significantly improves the wellbeing on the fetus cardiac parameters. It has been said that presenting music directly to the fetus while mother is relaxed has the potential to increase fetal response to the music and may possibly promote fetal well-being” (Grazyna, 2440-2445). So, we can clearly see that a fetus exposed to music is positively affected physically.
However, like pretty much everything in life, the concept of music enhancing the intelligence of a fetus has contradictory opinions. Around the same time that the first “Mozart Effect” studies took place, a separate group of researchers began investigating to see if it could really be proven. They concluded that students that listened to Mozart could in fact perform better in certain learning tasks, but that the effect was unfortunately temporary, lasting for about fifteen minutes only. So, they claimed that it would not bring the baby a lifetime of enhanced intelligence (BBC, 2013).
Yet, all of those studies were conducted on adults or older students, whose brains are, of course, fully developed. Therefore, none of that work sheds any light on whether exposing young children or fetuses to music regularly could permanently improve their learning ability. The Rauscher SAT study, on the other hand, seems to demonstrate that it does very strongly.
After reviewing all the available research, it seems there is very strong evidence that establishes classical music as one of the best ways to influence your baby’s brain. Even those who would deny the “Mozart Effect” have proven that classical music can temporarily improve the learning of an already developed child. Frankly, listening to classical music won’t do anyone or their baby any harm, and it could actually be the start of a life-long appreciation for music.
Just a few months of playing music to your unborn child could bring you a very smart child, or at least a very musically oriented child, so why not consider the practice an essential ingredient to any pregnancy?
I say, let the Sonatas play…
Works Cited
Rauscher, Frances H.; Shaw, Gordon L.; Ky, Catherine N. "Music and spatial task performance". Nature. Vol 365, doi:10.1038/365611a0.
Thompson, Billie M.; Andrews, Susan R. "An Historical Commentary On The Physiological Effects Of Music: Tomatis, Mozart And Neuropsychology". Integrative Physiological and Behavioral Science. 2000, p 174-188.
Thompson, W.F., Schellenberg, E.G. & Husain, G. "Arousal, Mood, And The Mozart Effect". Psychological Science. Vol 12(3), p 248–251. doi:10.1111/1467-9280.00345.
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