音樂，還能提升孩子的語言能力

Giving children music lessons won't just introduce them to a world of rhythm and melody – it could also significantly improve their language skills.

讓孩子學音樂不僅能提升他們的音樂技能，還能提高他們的語言能力。

While numerous studies have shown that learning an instrument can impact things like language ability, it wasn't understood if this was a side effect of a general boost to cognitive skills, or something that directly affected language processing.

雖然以前有研究曾發(fā)現(xiàn)過這一點，但科學家并不知道這是否是整體認知能力提升的結(jié)果，還是僅僅針對語言能力。

Now, we are getting closer to an answer, thanks to a study of 74 Chinese kindergarten children, led by neuroscientist Robert Desimone from MIT.

現(xiàn)在我們離答案越來越近了。這都多虧了麻省理工圣經(jīng)學家Robert Desimone等人對74名中國幼兒園學生所做的研究。

"The children didn't differ in the more broad cognitive measures, but they did show some improvements in word discrimination, particularly for consonants," explains Desimone."The piano group showed the best improvement there."

Desimone說道，“這些孩子的整體認知能力并沒有出現(xiàn)特別大的變化，但他們的詞語辨析能力卻提升了，特別是辨認輔音的能力。學鋼琴的孩子進步最大。”

For the study, Desimone's team – including MIT scientists and researchers from Beijing Normal University – recruited children from the Chinese education system, with the support of education officials who wanted to see how music learning might boost their academic results.The 4- to 5-year-old Mandarin-speaking children in the study were randomly divided into three groups. One group received a 45-minute piano lesson three times a week, while another received extra reading instruction classes. The third group acted as controls, taking no extra lessons beyond their usual routine.

Desimone等人聯(lián)合北京師范大學的研究者，邀請了一群4-5歲的幼兒園孩子，這些孩子都講中文，然后將他們隨機分成三組。一組每周上3次鋼琴課，每次上課時間是45分鐘;另一組上的是課外閱讀指導課;第三組是控制組，除了平時的課之外，沒有上別的課。

The classes lasted for six months, after which the children were tested on their ability to discriminate words based on differences in tone, consonants, or vowels. (In Mandarin, many words differ depending on their tone, with different tones giving words different meanings.)

上了六個月的課之后，研究團隊對這些孩子的詞語辨析能力做了測試，檢驗他們辨別音調(diào)、輔音或元音的能力。(中文詞語存在音調(diào)上的很大不同。)

The test results showed that the children who had taken piano lessons performed significantly better at discriminating between words that differ by a single consonant, when compared against the children who took extra reading lessons.Compared to the control group, both the music learners and the extra reading group did better in terms of discriminating words based on vowel differences.

測試結(jié)果顯示，比起上閱讀課的孩子，上鋼琴課的孩子通過輔音辨別不同詞語的能力更強。而跟控制組相比較，前兩組孩子通過元音辨別詞語的能力也都更強。

To get a sense of why these differences might be occurring, the researchers measured the children's brain activity via electroencephalography (EEG) and found the piano group exhibited greater sensitivity to tonal changes when tones were played to them at different pitches.The thinking goes, the exposure to music lessons helped develop this tonal sensitivity, which in part explains their better verbal word discrimination.

為了了解背后的原因，研究者用腦電描記法觀察了孩子們的腦部活動，發(fā)現(xiàn)當用不同音高播放音調(diào)時，鋼琴組的大腦對音調(diào)的變化更加敏感。所以，音樂課或許增強了孩子們的音調(diào)敏感性，因此改進了他們的口頭詞語辨析能力。

"That's a big thing for kids in learning language: being able to hear the differences between words," Desimone says. "They really did benefit from that."

Desimone說道，“能夠聽出不同詞語的區(qū)別，對孩子學習語言來說是個很重要的能力。而學音樂真的對此有幫助。”

Perhaps more importantly, results of IQ, attention, and working memory among the three groups didn't show any significant differences, suggesting that the boost given by music instruction isn't a general cognitive lift, but something specific to language (and perhaps the tone-based elements of it).

更重要的是，這三組孩子的IQ值、注意力與工作記憶表現(xiàn)都沒有很大不同，所以音樂課所提升的并不是孩子的總體認知能力，而是單純跟語言能力有關(guān)。

Of course, we're only looking at a fairly small sample of kids here, and all of them were from a Mandarin-speaking background. Given Mandarin's reliance on tonal differentiation, the researchers acknowledge that might have influenced the results.

當然了，研究的樣本比較小，而且這些孩子都以十分依賴音調(diào)的中文為母語，這可能會影響研究結(jié)果。

But it's also worth emphasising that the musical education helped these children outperform their peers in language tests – even beyond the results of kids who took extra reading classes, which is something that should make educators pay close attention.

雖然如此，音樂的確提升了孩子的語言能力，甚至比閱讀課作用還大，這是非常值得教育者注意的。

"It looks like for recognising differences between sounds, including speech sounds, it's better than extra reading. That means schools could invest in music and there will be generalisation to speech sounds," Desimone says." It's not worse than giving extra reading to the kids, which is probably what many schools are tempted to do – get rid of the arts education and just have more reading."

Desimone說道，“音樂課似乎能夠提升孩子辨認聲音的能力，包括講話時的聲音，甚至比閱讀課還有效。這說明學校可以在音樂教育上投入更多。很多學校都巴不得讓孩子上更多閱讀課，甚至完全不教音樂。但是音樂課的作用并不比閱讀課差。”

The findings are reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

該研究發(fā)表在PNAS上。