Piano training enhances the neural processing of pitch and improves speech perception in Mandarin-speaking children.

ABSTRACT: Musical training confers advantages in speech-sound processing, which could play an important role in early childhood education. To understand the mechanisms of this effect, we used event-related potential and behavioral measures in a longitudinal design. Seventy-four Mandarin-speaking children aged 4-5 y old were pseudorandomly assigned to piano training, reading training, or a no-contact control group. Six months of piano training improved behavioral auditory word discrimination in general as well as word discrimination based on vowels compared with the controls. The reading group yielded similar trends. However, the piano group demonstrated unique advantages over the reading and control groups in consonant-based word discrimination and in enhanced positive mismatch responses (pMMRs) to

SUBMITTER: Nan Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6048476 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature