For individuals who have hearing loss, the phrase “music to my ears” may have a completely new meaning.
Researchers at the University of Helsinki and the University College London analyzed the effects of musical experiences on hearing loss in children and the outcome of the study highlighted the effect and benefit obtained by exposing people to music.
Gauging Speech-in-Noise Performance
Researchers observed 43 young kids in a 14 to 16 month study where they measured speech-in-noise performance. Of those enrolled, 21 children had cochlear implants, while the remaining 22 had normal hearing ability. The researchers recognized that children with implants had a hard time understanding speech so they created control and test sets which assigned participants to singing and non-singing groups.
For children in the singing group, a remarkable improvement in awareness and speech-in-noise performance was revealed compared to children in the non-singing group.
The Ears Are Trained by Music
This study is only the latest in a long line of research endeavors that show the advantages of musical training to improve cognitive ability and speech processing. In loud settings, speech perception can be enhanced by musical training, and these results were corroborated by a study carried out by the Montreal Neurological Institute
That study examined the brain activity of 30 participants, 15 musicians and 15 non-musicians, asking each to identify speech syllables through a number of background noise levels.
Unlike the research out of Helsinki and London, Drs. Yi and Robert’s study looked at young adults whose ages averaged around 22-years-old. These participants had normal hearing but there was a substantial difference in results between the musicians and the non-musicians.
Non-Musicians Were Outperformed By Musicians
When the noise was absent, both groups had comparable results, but when any level of background noise was added, the musicians significantly outperformed the non-musicians. It’s likely that the ability to perform well on these tests was a result of enhancements to the left interior frontal and right auditory regions found within the brains of the musicians.
But the advantages of musical training revealed by Drs. Yi and Robert’s study don’t simply end there. According to the study’s conclusions, musical training strengthened the participant’s auditory-motor network, fine-tuning and uniting the auditory system and speech motor system to improve hearing.
It’s worthwhile to note that while the musicians examined were adults, they all started their musical education at a much younger age and accumulated at least ten years of musical training. Musical training has a profound impact and this once again backs that fact.
The Affect of Hearing Loss on Beethoven
Hearing loss has been a challenge for some of the world’s most well-known composers and musicians. Most notably, Ludwig van Beethoven who started to lose his hearing in his 20’s.
Though Beethoven’s young childhood musical education would be considered extreme by current standards, the groundwork of the training may have been the gateway to prolonging his career as a composer. In fact, Beethoven actually lived the last 10 years of his life nearly completely deaf. Despite that, many of his most treasured pieces were composed during his last 15 years.
References
Can children with hearing loss benefit from music and singing?
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-12-musical-affects-speech.html