Music! Does classical music make babies smarter? There’s no proof that it does, but classical music can soothe babies and may stimulate brain development. And there are proven benefits for children who listen to and play music, including improvements in math, reading, and motor skills.
Does classical music make babies smarter?
There isn’t any evidence that it does. Studies have shown that classical music brings down a newborn’s heart and breathing rates and soothes their stress, and that listening to a waltz or concerto might help promote brain development, especially in premature babies. But could playing classical music for babies make them smarter? That’s pretty questionable.
The idea that listening to classical music makes for smarter babies is called the “Mozart effect.” It comes from a 1993 study by psychologist Francis Rauscher, who found that college students temporarily scored higher on tests of spatial reasoning after listening to a Mozart sonata.
The media ran with the story, but they misinterpreted the study to mean that classical music makes children more intelligent overall, when that’s not what it found. The students only improved in spatial performance, and the effects lasted a short period of time.
Yet music isn’t without its merits. It can have a positive influence on developing minds.
Benefits of music for babies and kids
While there’s no evidence that classical music makes babies smarter, listening to and playing music has several proven benefits for children’s mental development, including:
- Stimulating the brain and forming new connections between neurons
- Supporting speech and language development
- Promoting math and reading skills
- Improving motor skills
What’s the best music for babies?
Music doesn’t need to be Mozart, or even classical, to be enriching. Listening to music of any kind, whether pop, folk, jazz, or hip-hop, is good for kids.
Being an active participant in making music is even better. With your baby and toddler, sing nursery rhymes and songs with movements, like Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, The Wheels on the Bus, and Itsy-Bitsy Spider. Pairing songs with movements helps support language development.
Encourage your little one to beat a toy drum or plink the keys of a piano along with whatever tune you’re enjoying. Once your child is old enough, enroll them in music classes. There’s some evidence that studying and playing music is more enriching than just listening to it.
Does the Mozart effect apply to babies?
The Mozart effect is the idea that people experience a temporary increase in intelligence after listening to a piano sonata written by the famed composer. It’s based on results of studies on college students, not babies.
It was first reported in 1993 by scientists at the University of California at Irvine, and replicated by the same group in 1995. Researchers found that college students who listened to a Mozart sonata for a few minutes before taking a test that measured spatial relationship skills did better than students who took the test after listening to another musician or no music at all.
The effect in the students was temporary (it lasted only 15 minutes) and has always been controversial. Nonetheless, the media and politicians hopped on the Mozart effect bandwagon, claiming that listening to the music offered numerous benefits and could alleviate physical and mental health problems.
The notion that babies would be smarter if they listened to classical music was born out of this hype. One year, the governor of Georgia mandated that a classic music CD – which contained the sonata and other pieces – be given to the parents of all new babies when they left the hospital.
Despite popular sentiment, the evidence that listening to classical music made anybody smarter was tenuous at best. The lead researcher in the original U.C. Irvine study himself said in a Forbes article that the idea that classical music can cure health problems and make babies smarter has “nothing to do with reality,” even though he believes that listening to a Mozart sonata can prime the brain to tackle mathematical tasks.
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