According to researchers at McMaster University in Canada - very early music training can benefit children - before they even learn to walk or talk - further details at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Q2VbOUfUmk.

What happens to a baby's brain in it's first year of life? Learn how creativity promotes brain development through our first Teddy Talk. Led by Director of Earlyarts, Ruth Churchill Dower, this video of her talk on 24 Nov 2013 at The Conservatoire is a must-see for parents of young children.

This brief, 2 minute video explains how experiences build the brain through the development of first simple and later complex circuits.

Neuroscience research is revealing the impressive impact of arts instruction on students' cognitive, social and emotional development.  Article by David A Sousa published in The Schools Administrator

This collection of studies highlights the possible impact of arts study on the brain. It includes links between music training and skills in geometrical representation, reading acquisition and sequence learning and training in acting and memory improvement.

This booklet was prepared and edited on behalf of the British Neuroscience Association and the European Dana Alliance for the Brain by Richard Morris (University of Edinburgh) and Marianne Fillenz (University of Oxford).

Earlyarts Director, Ruth Churchill Dower, discusses the problems with a hierarchy in education that considers the youngest children to be the least important, and asks that neuroscience research that illustrates how young children learn in holistic and heuristic ways is taken into consideration.

Young Brains in 'Birth to Three Matters: A Review of the Literature'. By T David, K Goouch, S Powell, and L Abbott, 2003.