Learning music early

Here's another quote from "This is your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession," by neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin. I really like this book and recommend it to you!

"We know that there are critical periods for acquiring new skills, such as language. If a child doesn't learn leanguage by the age of six or so (whether a first or a second language), the child will never learn to speak with the effortlessness that characterizes most native speaker of a language. Music and mathematics have an extended window, but not an unlimited one: If a student hasn't had music lessons or mathematical training prior to about age twenty, he can still learn these subjects, but only with great difficulty, and it's likely that he will never "speak" math or music like someone who learned them early. This is because of the biological course for synaptic growth. The brain's synapses are programmed to grow for a number of years, making new connections. After that time, there is a shirt toward pruning, to get rid of unneeded connections." [italics mine]

We help our children form new neurological connections every day in Kindermusik. Yahoo!