A large-scale, longitudinal neuroscience study has shown that visual arts lessons significantly improve children’s visual and spatial memory and that music lessons significantly improve primary school children’s cognitive skills and academic performance.
The researchers conducted the study with 147 children across multiple schools in Holland. All schools followed the regular primary school curriculum, with some providing supplementary music or visual arts classes. In these, the children were given both theoretical and practical lessons.
Interviewed by Science Daily, Dr Arthur Jaschke, who led the study, said: 'Both music and arts classes are supposed to be applied throughout all Dutch primary schools by the year 2020, but considering our results, we hope that this study will support political developments to reintegrate music and arts education into schools around the world.'
Read the research article published by frontiers in Neuroscience here.
