MUSIC & EARLY LEARNING
Can These Songs Make Your Child Smarter?
Singing, rhythm and musical play can support important foundations of learning. The science is promising—but more specific than the claim that music automatically increases intelligence.
A toddler claps along with a song, waits for a familiar word and joins in with a delighted shout. To an adult, it may look like simple entertainment. For the child, it is an opportunity to listen, recognize a pattern, remember what comes next and coordinate a response.
Research shows that active musical participation can strengthen certain skills involved in learning, particularly the processing of sound and rhythm. Whether those benefits translate into a lasting increase in general intelligence is a separate question, and the evidence remains mixed.
What does research say about intelligence?
One influential study, published in Psychological Science in 2004, randomly assigned 144 children to keyboard lessons, voice lessons, drama lessons or no lessons. Children in the music groups showed slightly greater increases in IQ than those in the comparison groups. The effect was small. Read Schellenberg’s study (2004).
The broader research picture is less decisive. A 2020 analysis covering 54 studies and nearly 7,000 participants found that apparent benefits to general cognitive ability and academic achievement largely disappeared in studies with stronger experimental designs. Music often showed little additional advantage when compared with another organized learning activity. Read Sala and Gobet’s analysis (2020).
Music can support particular learning skills, but it is not a proven shortcut to higher IQ. Becoming better at recognizing rhythms or remembering a song is valuable. It does not necessarily mean a child’s intelligence has increased across unrelated areas.
Rhythm can help young brains process sound
In a University of Washington study published in PNAS in 2016, nine-month-old babies were randomly assigned to interactive music sessions or play sessions without music. During the musical activities, caregivers helped babies move and tap to a beat.
After 12 sessions over four weeks, babies in the music group showed stronger brain responses to disruptions in rhythmic patterns, both in music and in speech. This suggests that musical experiences can improve how infants detect timing patterns in sound—an ability relevant to processing spoken language. The study measured brain responses rather than later vocabulary, reading achievement or IQ. Read Zhao and Kuhl’s study (2016).
Musical games give children practice in paying attention
A stop-and-start dancing game asks children to listen for a cue and interrupt an action. An echo song asks them to hold a sound in mind and repeat it. Taking turns with a drum requires waiting, watching and responding.
These activities involve skills often called executive functions: mental processes that help children manage attention, remember instructions and control impulses. Research on lasting improvements from music has yielded mixed results. One preschool study found initial gains in planning and inhibition, but those advantages were not clearly repeated when music was compared with another structured activity. Read the preschool intervention study (2018).
Musical games offer useful practice. Claims that they reliably transform a child’s overall attention span or self-control go beyond the evidence.
Participation matters
The research described here involved active music sessions or instruction. Simply playing recordings continuously or watching a musical video has not been shown to reproduce those results.
A recording can be a starting point for shared activity. Sing along, copy a movement, pause for your child to supply a word or talk about what happened in the song. For a song about kindness, help your child practice offering a toy. A cleanup song can accompany putting toys into a basket. The song introduces an idea; the shared activity gives your child a chance to use it.
Bringing music into everyday learning
Families do not need expensive instruments or formal lessons to begin. Try these simple activities:
- Sing a familiar song and pause for your child to join in.
- Clap a short rhythm and invite your child to copy it.
- Move together to music, then stop when it pauses.
- Add gestures to songs about animals, body parts or daily routines.
- Let your child invent sounds, movements or new words.
These are ways to make musical play interactive, rather than a prescribed program for raising intelligence. Let your child’s interests and responses guide the experience.
Music deserves a place in childhood for its creativity, enjoyment and opportunities for connection. Research adds another reason: carefully designed musical experiences can support specific processes involved in learning. Sing together, play together and give children opportunities to listen, respond and discover.