Cognitive effects of numeracy musical training in brazilian preschool children: A prospective pilot study

Abstract

Musical training has been shown to have beneficial effects on several human cognitive functions, including cognition, spoken language, socialization, and logical-mathematical thinking. Evidence also shows that musical training boosts several cognitive skills in children. However, few studies have focused on its effects for numerical cognition in preschoolers. We developed a brief unedited numeracy musical training (NMT) program that was tested in a pseudorandomized, blinded, prospective study. The participants included 40 preschoolers (5 years old) with typical development from the countryside of São Paulo state, Brazil. The sample was divided into 2 gender-balanced groups: An experimental group (EG; n = 20) that underwent 8 NMT sessions and a control group (CG; n = 20) that did not receive NMT. All of the participants were assessed at 2 time points by applying instruments related to the following domains: Abstract reasoning, verbal and visuospatial working memory, and numeracy. Only the EG presented improvements in 2 cognitive domains in the second assessment. Our findings need to be replicated, but they provide preliminary evidence that NMT may boost numerical cognition and working memory in preschoolers.