Northwestern University's Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory just released a new study looking at the impact that musical education can have on the nervous systems of at-risk children. Rebecca Klein writes, "The study is the first to document the influence of after-school music education on the brains of disadvantaged children, as opposed to affluent children receiving private lessons." Results from the study suggest that continued musical education can help these students develop both their language and reading skills. The researchers spent two summers observing students who took lessons through a non-profit musical education organization, The Harmony Project. The "students were hooked up to a neural probe that allowed [the] researchers to see how children 'distinguished similar speech sounds, a neural process that is linked to language and reading skills.'" Interestingly, after observing two groups of students - those who only received lessons for one year and those two participated for two - the researchers discovered that the children's brains only started reacting to the musical education after two years, while there was no definitive impact on the children who only received one year of instruction. Thus, while musical education would not be a quick fix, it does have an impact if it is continued.

The Harmony Project reported that "[s]ince 2008, over 90 percent of high school seniors who participated in [their] free music lessons went on to college, even though the high school dropout rates in the surrounding Los Angeles areas can reach up to 50 percent . . . ."  According to Dr. Nina Kraus, the lead author of the study, "[i]t would appear that music is an effective strategy for helping to close the achievement gap . . . What seems to be happening is that this experience of making music is helping to create a more efficient brain, a brain that is going to be able to help a person learn and communicate, especially through sound." The research lab is now teaming up with the Harmony Project to see how music can impact grades specifically. Already, Harmony has reported that students with only one year of musical education improved or maintained their grades as opposed to their peers whose grades, on average, dropped.