This post explores the benefits of music therapy for children and teens both in the hospital and while recovering at home. The author, a licensed music therapist, defines music therapy as the therapeutic use of music to meet a child’s mental, physical, emotional and spiritual needs.
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Using Music to Help Unlock Alzheimer’s Patients’ Memories
Music lights up many parts of the brain, and now is being used by a program called Music and Memory that helps those suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. CBS News chief medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook has reports on how the program helps connect Alzheimer’s patients with themselves.
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The Influence of Background Music on Learning in the Light of Different Theoretical Perspectives and the Role of Working Memory Capacity
This study investigates how background music influences learning with respect to three different theoretical approaches. Both the Mozart effect as well as the arousal-mood-hypothesis indicate that background music can potentially benefit learning outcomes. While the Mozart effect assumes a direct influence of background music on cognitive abilities, the arousal-mood-hypothesis assumes a mediation effect over arousal and mood.
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Music and Learning: Does Music Make You Smarter?
What is music and why do people think it is important for learning? Musical sounds fill our lives: from the music you share online to the songs playing in shops and restaurants, we are rarely far from music. Playing music gives the brain a multisensory “workout” that can strengthen memory, help us pay attention, and perhaps even improve reading ability.
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Music Interventions and Child Development: A Critical Review and Further Directions
Research on the impact of music interventions has indicated positive effects on a variety of skills. These findings suggest musical interventions may have further potential to support educational processes and development of children. This paper reviews the latest evidence on the effect of musical interventions on the development of primary school-aged children.
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Tuning Into Identity: Music’s Role in LGBTQIA + Self-Exploration
This blog posting highlights the importance of music in helping LGBTQ+ youth with their journey to self discovery. Music allows LGBTQIA+ youth to escape from the exclusivity of our immediate reality by participating in LGBTQIA+ culture on our own terms, at our own pace and without the pressure or risk of disclosing our identity to others.
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Pride Month: LGBTQ+ Representation in the Music Industry
This 2023 blog posting gives some background on the origins of Pride Month and activities for 2023 but its real value is in the discussion of how music impacts LGBTQ+ individuals. The author notes that music has played a vital role in providing a platform for these individuals to express their identities, experiences and emotions.
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Famous Queen Track Rocks Insulin Cells into Action
There’s no doubt that a lot of people would say, perhaps a little hyperbolically, that rock and roll saved their lives. Now, new research has shown that the music just might be able to serve as a literal life saver for diabetics. In the United States alone, over 37 million people have diabetes, a condition wherein the body produces little to no insulin.
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Even Babies Know Rock ‘n’ Roll
Newborns can’t exactly swing their hips to prove they can jive, so researchers monitored the brains of 14 infants listening to variations of a rock rhythm — complete with drum, snare and high hat cymbal. When metrically-unimportant portions of the beat were silenced, nothing much changed among the auditory-related activity in the brain, the researchers found.
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Music and Mental Health – Through the Lens – and Ears – of an Ethnomusicologist
Zaretti says the exciting part about music is there’s no “one size fits all” approach for how people experience it; therefore, the way people use music to process emotions is uniquely their own. For example, someone who’s upset might find it helpful to listen to soothing songs while another individual with the same feeling might require music opposite of that.
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