By Kevin Lee Associate Editor

According to researchers, the three Rs of education need another companion. Reading, ‘Riting and ‘Rithmetic, meet Rhythm.

New findings from a consortium of seven prestigious American and Canadian universities were compiled and released by the Dana Foundation, a non-profit group founded 50 years ago whose stated principal interests are in “brain science, immunology and arts education.”

The study lasted three years and while they stopped shy of drawing a cause and effect relationship, the findings “tighten up” longstanding correlations between artistic endeavors and cognitive abilities according to Michael Gazzaniga, organizer of the consortium and director of the Sage Center for the Study of the Mind at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

“What we’re seeing here is quantitative scientific data that confirms traditional assumptions about the interrelationship between arts and learning,” Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts Dana Gioia said.

One hypothesis about the effect of arts training on children’s cognition says greater motivation to study that discipline leads to sustained attention that leads to increased efficiency of neural networks involving focus.

Michael Posner of the University of Oregon developed a video game with exercises he described as “designed to be interesting and motivating to young children in just the way we assume arts training to be.”

Children aged 4 to 7 underwent cognitive testing that recorded brain activity before and after exposure to the game. According the foundation, five days of training with the video game showed “clear evidence” of improvements in brain efficiency.

“When you change that network, you also improve general cognitive capacity, as determined by intelligence tests,” Posner said. “This suggests absorbing a child in one of the art forms is one way to train the attentional network.”

Posner also identified slight genetic variations predicting network efficiency involving production of neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine. The researcher believes the variations may make a child more receptive to environmental influence.

Psychologist Brian Wandell of Stanford University found musical training closely correlated with reading fluency. He studied 49 children aged 7 to 12 enrolled in a federally funded study examining brain structure.

Looking at the effects of various arts-visual, music, dance, and drama-on reading and phonological skills, Wandell found the effect on reading only evident with musical training and the more musical training they had, the greater the effect.

The research also showed preliminary evidence of a correlation between early visual arts exposure and math calculation.

Wandell’s team used a brain-imaging technique that measured the tracts of white matter which link various regions of the brain.

“There’s a remarkable connection between the properties of white matter fibers and phonological awareness,” Wandell said. His group plans further studies.

Elizabeth Spelke, a neuropsychologist at Harvard University studied three groups of children aged 5 to 18. She compared moderate musical training to comparable athletic training in one, intensive music training to little training in another, and intensive music training to similar levels in dance, theater, writing or visual arts.

The greatest impact was found in those studying music intensively, defined as 20 or more hours per week. According to the report: they were significantly better at tasks involving geometric representation and classic Euclidean properties such as angles and distance-tasks among the three core systems that support learning math and science.

“We found a clear benefit for intensive music training compared to theater of writing,” Spelke said. Her postulation is that music “taps very fundamental brain systems for spatial representation.”

Other recent studies have shown melodies and sequences of tones activate brain regions involved in spatial representations.

“In the U.S. today we have created a bogus opposition between arts learning and other kinds of learning,” Gioia said. “This strikes me as a recipe for disaster. There is an enormous amount of research still to be done, but I think we know enough today to say that education policy and budget makers are using a false model.”

“The purpose of education is to realize the full potential of each child,” he said. “To do that, children need exposure to a broad range (of arts training), not just traditional hard academic subjects.”

MENC: The National Association of Music Education points to a recent Harris Poll showing 88 percent of those with post-graduate degrees had music education. The association also referred to an earlier Harris Poll showing significantly higher graduation and attendance rates – 90.2 percent compared to 72.9 percent and 93.3 percent to 84.9 percent respectively-in schools with music programs.

MENC also cited statistics showing students in top quality music programs scored 22 percent higher in English and 22 percent higher in math on standardized tests.

According to the Profile of College-Bound Seniors National Report for 2006, SAT takers with music backgrounds scored 57 points higher on the verbal portion of the test and 43 points higher on the math portion.

“Research confirms that music education at an early age greatly increases the likelihood that a child will grow up to seek higher education and ultimately earn a higher salary,” MENC Executive Director Dr. John Mahlmann said. “The sad irony is that ‘No Child Left Behind’ is intended to better prepare our children for the real world, yet it’s leaving music behind despite its proven benefits.”

Kevin Lee is Lagniappe associate editor. Contact him at klee@lagniappemobile.com.

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