Benefits of singing

Claim: ‘Children Who Sing Have Greater Academic Success and Life Skills’

While Chorus America does offer some support for this claim by pointing to actual data about students’ grades, they also surveyed parents, the majority of whom reported that their child has become more self-confident, shown more self-discipline and improved their memory since joining a choir.
The issue here is asking parents to draw a causal relationship between the activity (singing in a choir) and the outcome (better memory).
To see why this is a problem, consider these three questions:

• Has playing sports improved your child’s memory?
• Has eating more apples improved your child’s memory?
• Has singing in choir improved your child’s memory?

If you’re a parent, maybe you answered “yes” to all three, so how do you know which of the three possible causes is actually responsible for the result? In short, you don’t. It could have been any of the three, a combination or something else entirely.

Other Findings

The study has a number of other interesting findings and you can read the rest of them here.
In short, singing in choir may very well be a good thing. But how good? We’re still not sure.
Do you sing in a choir? Leave a comment and let us know why and how it has affected your life.