Research has shown that Music is very important for children's development, having an impact from a very early age. There is a variety of psychological research evidence suggesting that infants when actively take part in music classes, they widen their positive social trajectory and follow an earlier enculturation development. They better exploit the ‘music properties’ (i.e. tempo, timbre, rhythm) which are intrinsic to communication between them and their parents, while they also enhance their communication skills in both linguistic and functional societal terms. Biological evidence suggest that they put very early at work their already specialised for music processing brain while enhancing and specializing even more their neuronal circuitry. Nevertheless, early years research rarely refers to subcortical structures, thus missing a fundamental scope and angle of this valuable knowledge. This paper proposes a protocol on that specific subject of the early years subcortical development, explaining why and how such an inquiry should and can be investigated with the help of music.

Published in: Canada International Conference on Education, 2017

• Date of Conference: 26-29 June, 2017
• DOI: 10.2053/CICE.2017.0182
• Electronic ISBN: 978-1-908320-83-4
• Conference Location: University of Toronto Mississauga, Canada