The Power of Music: How Listening Enhances a Child’s Engagement with Activities

Listening to music while deeply engaging with an activity is a win-win for little ones. Our guest blogger Amelia Moore who is researching Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara breaks down the science on why and how music can positively impact children:

A Quick Look at Childhood Brain Development

Did you know that 90% of your child’s brain develops by the age of five? Although learning this fact can set off panic in parents, it’s also an amazing opportunity to help your little one learn and grow.

Your child’s developing brain is like a large and porous sponge filling up with water. As your child grows you’ll notice how their brain is truly absorbent; from obscure dinosaur names (Gigantoraptor anyone?) to galaxies far away, a child’s ability to retain information is impressive!

How it Works

At birth, your child’s brain hosts an abundance of cells called neurons. However, just as pores cannot function without water, neurons cannot function without communicating, and they do so via neural connections. Like water filling up a sponge, these connections are shaped by sensory experiences in a child’s environment. The young brain soaks up each new sensory experience until it is dense with neural connections!

Music and the Brain

Research shows that exposing your child to music supports their brain’s development - plus it’s fun!

Listening to music helps your baby practice processing auditory information. Your little one learns to listen for different sound characteristics. This builds neural connections that help them comprehend these sounds as music.

Later, auditory comprehension helps your child with language development. The pattern recognition, attention, and memory skills they obtain from listening to music help them learn to imitate and successfully reproduce language as they grow.

Try it at home

Set up an environment where your child can listen to familiar music while engaging in nonverbal play - such as working a puzzle or a craft. Don’t forget to select something without lyrics.

An easy way to do this is to use a Yoto Player, the screen-free, interactive audio player for kids, with stimulating brain activities like the Skillmatics Piece and Play puzzle or creative activities like Foil Fun.

By allowing your child to independently choose and control their music with the Yoto Player, you can ensure they choose music that is familiar and exciting to them. The engagement with the music will help your child feel motivated to challenge themselves to complete a Skillmatics puzzle or craft.

Instrumental Music Helps Concentration Last Longer

Introducing upbeat, familiar background music without lyrics during playtime can positively impact your child’s performance on nonverbal play tasks, such as building with blocks or completing puzzles. (The research that supports all this is listed at the bottom of this article!)

Why is this? The different attributes of music - tempo, tone, and layers of instruments - engage your child and invite them to keep listening, and therefore to keep pursuing their activity. Listening to happy, upbeat, and familiar music helps cultivate an environment where your child is engaged and excited to participate in the task at hand.