A small UK study into babies and music indicated that babies preferred music that they had heard while in the womb for at least a year after they were born.
Although they did not suggest that this made babies more intelligent, it did indicate that the prenatal period was more important than previously thought and also suggested that the developing brain was capable of storing and recovering memories over a long period of time.
The study, by Dr Alexandra Lamont from the Music Research Group at the University’s School of Psychology, demonstrated on the BBC’s Child Of Our Time programme, how one-year-old babies could recognise music they had been exposed to, up to three months before birth.
It is already known that foetus’ can hear fully from 20 weeks old, but the fact that they can remember music a year after it was heard in the womb.
It appeared that the type of music, whether it was Reggae or Mozart made no difference, although infants preferred to listen to faster music than slower music.
There was no evidence that classical music was better than pop music or any other kind of music. This being the case infants should be given music to listen to with lyrics, which may then in fact develop their vocabulary and language skills. So consider exposing your babies to the following music and even nursery rhymes which are great for developing academic skills.
Music to develop infant language
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