By Marilyn Elias
USA TODAY

Los Angeles

Parents take heart: If weekly music lessons show no sign of turning your kid into a young Leonard Bernstein: they could be stoking the talents of a future Marie Curie or Galileo.

Just 15 minutes a week of private keyboard instruction along with group singing at pre-school, dramatically improve a kind of intelligence need for high-level math and science suggests a new study.

Music lessons appear to strengthen the links between brain neurons and build new neural bridges needed for good spatial reasoning.

Music instruction can improve a child’s spatial
intelligence for long periods of time-perhaps permanently.

The study compared 19 pre- schoolers who took the lessons and 14 classmates enrolled in no special music programs.

After 8 months, the study showed:

• A 45% boost in spatial IQ’s for the young musicians.

• A 6% improvement for children who were not taught music.

If parents can’t afford lessons, they should at least buy a musical keyboard….or sing regularly with their kids and involve them in musical activities.