Music app aids baby’s development
Consider a baby’s brain at the microscopic level. It is a ferociously busy place.
Each new bit of sensory input causes explosions of possibility as synapses fire and forge new connections. Pathways of memory come alive and cognitive ability, balance and coordination grows.
In its first year, the baby’s brain will double in size.
During this critical time, exposure to music can develop skills in children that will serve them well for the rest of their lives, says Dr. Peter Simon, president of the Royal Conservatory of Music (RCM).
A new digital tool is putting that power into the hands of parents of children age 0-12 months. Smart Start: Music for Your Baby’s
Brain is an app that was developed by RCM’S Marilyn Thomson Early Childhood Education Centre. It is aimed at developing the four primary cognitive skills of attention, memory, perception and cognitive flexibility using simple songs and movements.
It is free to download, comes with 12 free songs (with more available for purchase), and tech-savvy parents who have reviewed the app are giving it the highest praise.
“The conservatory develops human potential through music and the arts,” Simon said. “We believe music has a unique, and enormous, power to develop human beings, and in the past few decades that view has been reinforced by scientific research that shows in very tangible ways the impact that music has on human development, specifically cognitive development in young children and overall wellness and health.”
Simon said exposure to music education specifically aids the development of speech and reading skills, training children to focus for extended periods, and giving them a sense of empathy for others.
And all of this is especially true in the early stages of a child’s development.
“High quality, structured music education programs result in an increase on the order of 20 per cent in mathematics and English scores once they are in school,” he said.
The app comes with tutorials to guide the parents along and help them teach the songs, as well as reference material. It is designed for a parent to use without a child seeing the screen by placing the phone behind themselves and following along as they focus on the child.
“One of the two songbooks (Hush Little Baby) promotes sleep and relaxation, and the other (Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes) is meant to develop sensory and perceptual systems,” said Simon.
RCM recently published the first year’s results of its own, internal multi-year research into the benefits of early childhood education, led by Dr. Sean Hutchins, resident neuroscientist.
He found that after one year, the students that participated in the Smart Start program demonstrated a significant increase in their vocabulary and pre-reading skills – the recognition of letters and the sounds that make up words.
And these increases were well beyond what could be attributed to development in an environment without music education.
So the curriculum of the Smart Start app was developed based on that research, in collaboration with Dr. Laurel Trainor, at Mcmaster University’s Institute for Music and the Mind.
The app was launched in 2017, and is part of the conservatory’s overall initiative over the past five years to put all of its resources into a digital platform. It has plans to develop a suite of apps to serve children up to six years of age, with the next instalment set for release sometime in 2019.