Abstract
Children from disadvantaged backgrounds often face impoverished auditory environments, such as greater exposure to ambient noise and fewer opportunities to participate in complex language interactions during development. These circumstances increase their risk for academic failure and dropout. Given the academic and neural benefits associated with musicianship, music training may be one method for providing auditory enrichment to children from disadvantaged backgrounds. We followed a group of primary-school students from gang reduction zones in Los Angeles, CA, USA for 2 years as they participated in Harmony Project. By providing free community music instruction for disadvantaged children, Harmony Project promotes the healthy development of children as learners, the development of children as ambassadors of peace and understanding, and the development of stronger communities. Children who were more engaged in the music program—as defined by better attendance and classroom participation—developed stronger brain encoding of speech after 2 years than their less-engaged peers in the program. Additionally, children who were more engaged in the program showed increases in reading scores, while those less engaged did not show improvements. The neural gains accompanying music engagement were seen in the very measures of neural speech processing that are weaker in children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Our results suggest that community music programs such as Harmony Project provide a form of auditory enrichment that counteracts some of the biological adversities of growing up in poverty, and can further support community-based interventions aimed at improving child health and wellness.
Highlights
Over 16 million children in the US live in families with incomes below the federal poverty level, with a disproportionate number (68%) being members of minority racial and ethnic groups (Jiang et al, 2014)
Chronic noise exposure in children has been linked to weaker reading proficiency and cognitive skills (Maxwell and Evans, 2000; Haines et al, 2001; Clark et al, 2005) and can lead to delayed auditory neural development and greater spontaneous neural activity in animals (Chang and Merzenich, 2003; Seki and Eggermont, 2003; Zhu et al, 2014)
We investigated whether greater engagement in music instruction can positively impact the neural encoding of speech
Summary
Over 16 million children in the US live in families with incomes below the federal poverty level, with a disproportionate number (68%) being members of minority racial and ethnic groups (Jiang et al, 2014). Known to be important for language development (Benasich et al, 2002, 2008; Boets et al, 2011; Goswami et al, 2011), may contribute to the link between SES and academic achievement. Chronic noise exposure in children has been linked to weaker reading proficiency and cognitive skills (Maxwell and Evans, 2000; Haines et al, 2001; Clark et al, 2005) and can lead to delayed auditory neural development and greater spontaneous neural activity in animals (Chang and Merzenich, 2003; Seki and Eggermont, 2003; Zhu et al, 2014). Though, community and home based interventions may reverse these effects; children from low SES families participating in Head Start and attention www.frontiersin.org
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