Trial reportProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2018
Piano training enhances the neural processing of pitch and improves speech perception in Mandarin-speaking children.
Trial report in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 33 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
33 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- The effects of music-based interventions on cognitive function in cognitively normal older adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Pooled it
- Cognitive and academic benefits of music training with children: A multilevel meta-analysis.Memory & cognition · 2020Pooled it
- Improved Auditory Function Caused by Music Versus Foreign Language Training at School Age: Is There a Difference?Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2021Trial
- Music training with Démos program positively influences cognitive functions in children from low socio-economic backgrounds.PloS one · 2019Trial
- Mismatch Responses to Prosodic Changes in Children With Developmental Language Disorder: A Longitudinal Approach.The European journal of neuroscience · 2026Article
- Impact of Education and Music Training on the Development of Abstract Thinking in the First Years of Schooling.Open mind : discoveries in cognitive science · 2026Article
- Effects of multicultural piano education on children's psychosocial wellbeing: the roles of cross-cultural musical competence and cultural identity.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- The comparative effects of Cantonese and Mandarin tone language backgrounds on musical pitch perception.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Teacher Support and Pre-Service Preschool Teachers' Piano Skill: The Chain Mediation Effects of Music Self-Efficacy and Learning Engagement.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- The role of musical aspects of language in human cognition.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Review
- Prosodic discrimination skills mediate the association between musical aptitude and vocal emotion recognition ability.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Myogenic artifacts masquerade as neuroplasticity in the auditory frequency-following response.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2024Article
- Individual differences in rhythm perception modulate music-related motor learning: a neurobehavioral training study with children.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Meta-Analysis Exploring the Effects of Music Training in Cochlear Implant Users by Age.Journal of audiology & otology · 2023Article
- Enduring musician advantage among former musicians in prosodic pitch perception.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Effects of a 10-week musical instrument training on cognitive function in healthy older adults: implications for desirable tests and period of training.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2023Article
- The more the better? Effects of L1 tonal density and typology on the perception of non-native tones.PloS one · 2023Article
- Treatments and regulatory mechanisms of acoustic stimuli on mood disorders and neurological diseases.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2023Review
- Development of categorical speech perception in Mandarin-speaking children and adolescents.Child development · 2023Article
- Examining Individual Differences in Singing, Musical and Tone Language Ability in Adolescents and Young Adults with Dyslexia.Brain sciences · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Musical training confers advantages in speech-sound processing, which could play an important role in early childhood education. To understand the mechanisms of this effect, we used event-related potential and behavioral measures in a longitudinal design. Seventy-four Mandarin-speaking children aged 4-5 y old were pseudorandomly assigned to piano training, reading training, or a no-contact control group. Six months of piano training improved behavioral auditory word discrimination in general as well as word discrimination based on vowels compared with the controls. The reading group yielded similar trends. However, the piano group demonstrated unique advantages over the reading and control groups in consonant-based word discrimination and in enhanced positive mismatch responses (pMMRs) to lexical tone and musical pitch changes. The improved word discrimination based on consonants correlated with the enhancements in musical pitch pMMRs among the children in the piano group. In contrast, all three groups improved equally on general cognitive measures, including tests of IQ, working memory, and attention. The results suggest strengthened common sound processing across domains as an important mechanism underlying the benefits of musical training on language processing. In addition, although we failed to find far-transfer effects of musical training to general cognition, the near-transfer effects to speech perception establish the potential for musical training to help children improve their language skills. Piano training was not inferior to reading training on direct tests of language function, and it even seemed superior to reading training in enhancing consonant discrimination.
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