Neuroscience Behind the Music
So what exactly is happening in the brain when our children play and participate in music therapy sessions? There are many underlying neural mechanisms at work that make music a perfect tool to connect with children with developmental disabilities.
Good Organization
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Music can be described as having good "gestalts", German for organized structure, comprised of many pieces.
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These pieces are rhythm, melody, harmony, pitch, timbre and many others.
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These elements are taken in by the brain and analyzed in different neural structures, which are then pieced together to make a whole and distinguishable piece of music.
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Music's organization helps children to understand and percieve complex information in musical form.
Global Processing
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Music is processed in both hemispheres of the brain, not only in the right hemisphere as it was widely believed in the past.
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Scientists have discovered that music can activate "parrallel networks" in the brain.
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For example, while singing, brain imaging shows that the parrallel speech network of the brain is active.
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It is through this "back door" that music therapists are able to utilize music to train functional skills like speech.
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Parrallel networks also exist for attention, planning, memory, movement and a host of others.
Rewiring Neural Pathways
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Neuroscientists have also discovered that the brain is capable of changing, regenerating and re-molding itself through a phenomenon known as neural plasticity.
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The brain is especially capable of these changes in children, because the brain is still developing and changing with growth.
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Because the brain is "plastic", music therapists are able to rewire and retrain weak or damaged neural networks through music and their parallel networks.
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Music therapists can access and strengthen non-musical functions such as speech or movement and strengthen the neural connections that are present, through music.