音乐，还能提升孩子的语言能力
让孩子学音乐不仅能提升他们的音乐技能，还能提高他们的语言能力。
While numerous studies have shown that learning an instrument can impact things like language ability, it wasn't understood if this was a side effect of a general boost to cognitive skills, or something that directly affected language processing.
虽然以前有研究曾发现过这一点，但科学家并不知道这是否是整体认知能力提升的结果，还是仅仅针对语言能力。
Now, we are getting closer to an answer, thanks to a study of 74 Chinese kindergarten children, led by neuroscientist Robert Desimone from MIT.
现在我们离答案越来越近了。这都多亏了麻省理工圣经学家Robert Desimone等人对74名中国幼儿园学生所做的研究。
"The children didn't differ in the more broad cognitive measures, but they did show some improvements in word discrimination, particularly for consonants," explains Desimone."The piano group showed the best improvement there."
Desimone说道，“这些孩子的整体认知能力并没有出现特别大的变化，但他们的词语辨析能力却提升了，特别是辨认辅音的能力。学钢琴的孩子进步最大。”
For the study, Desimone's team – including MIT scientists and researchers from Beijing Normal University – recruited children from the Chinese education system, with the support of education officials who wanted to see how music learning might boost their academic results.The 4- to 5-year-old Mandarin-speaking children in the study were randomly divided into three groups. One group received a 45-minute piano lesson three times a week, while another received extra reading instruction classes. The third group acted as controls, taking no extra lessons beyond their usual routine.
Desimone等人联合北京师范大学的研究者，邀请了一群4-5岁的幼儿园孩子，这些孩子都讲中文，然后将他们随机分成三组。一组每周上3次钢琴课，每次上课时间是45分钟;另一组上的是课外阅读指导课;第三组是控制组，除了平时的课之外，没有上别的课。
The classes lasted for six months, after which the children were tested on their ability to discriminate words based on differences in tone, consonants, or vowels. (In Mandarin, many words differ depending on their tone, with different tones giving words different meanings.)
上了六个月的课之后，研究团队对这些孩子的词语辨析能力做了测试，检验他们辨别音调、辅音或元音的能力。(中文词语存在音调上的很大不同。)
The test results showed that the children who had taken piano lessons performed significantly better at discriminating between words that differ by a single consonant, when compared against the children who took extra reading lessons.Compared to the control group, both the music learners and the extra reading group did better in terms of discriminating words based on vowel differences.
测试结果显示，比起上阅读课的孩子，上钢琴课的孩子通过辅音辨别不同词语的能力更强。而跟控制组相比较，前两组孩子通过元音辨别词语的能力也都更强。
To get a sense of why these differences might be occurring, the researchers measured the children's brain activity via electroencephalography (EEG) and found the piano group exhibited greater sensitivity to tonal changes when tones were played to them at different pitches.The thinking goes, the exposure to music lessons helped develop this tonal sensitivity, which in part explains their better verbal word discrimination.
为了了解背后的原因，研究者用脑电描记法观察了孩子们的脑部活动，发现当用不同音高播放音调时，钢琴组的大脑对音调的变化更加敏感。所以，音乐课或许增强了孩子们的音调敏感性，因此改进了他们的口头词语辨析能力。
"That's a big thing for kids in learning language: being able to hear the differences between words," Desimone says. "They really did benefit from that."
Desimone说道，“能够听出不同词语的区别，对孩子学习语言来说是个很重要的能力。而学音乐真的对此有帮助。”
Perhaps more importantly, results of IQ, attention, and working memory among the three groups didn't show any significant differences, suggesting that the boost given by music instruction isn't a general cognitive lift, but something specific to language (and perhaps the tone-based elements of it).
更重要的是，这三组孩子的IQ值、注意力与工作记忆表现都没有很大不同，所以音乐课所提升的并不是孩子的总体认知能力，而是单纯跟语言能力有关。
Of course, we're only looking at a fairly small sample of kids here, and all of them were from a Mandarin-speaking background. Given Mandarin's reliance on tonal differentiation, the researchers acknowledge that might have influenced the results.
当然了，研究的样本比较小，而且这些孩子都以十分依赖音调的中文为母语，这可能会影响研究结果。
But it's also worth emphasising that the musical education helped these children outperform their peers in language tests – even beyond the results of kids who took extra reading classes, which is something that should make educators pay close attention.
虽然如此，音乐的确提升了孩子的语言能力，甚至比阅读课作用还大，这是非常值得教育者注意的。
"It looks like for recognising differences between sounds, including speech sounds, it's better than extra reading. That means schools could invest in music and there will be generalisation to speech sounds," Desimone says." It's not worse than giving extra reading to the kids, which is probably what many schools are tempted to do – get rid of the arts education and just have more reading."
Desimone说道，“音乐课似乎能够提升孩子辨认声音的能力，包括讲话时的声音，甚至比阅读课还有效。这说明学校可以在音乐教育上投入更多。很多学校都巴不得让孩子上更多阅读课，甚至完全不教音乐。但是音乐课的作用并不比阅读课差。”
The findings are reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
该研究发表在PNAS上。
