We’re always sharing on Twitter and Facebook studies that show how great music is for kids, especially when they’re learning how to play an instrument. These tweets and posts are sometimes lost in newsfeeds and timelines, but what they say still remains true, sometimes even long after your kid has lost interest in the instrument.
Some things are pretty logical, such as how fun and motivating music can be. But others are pretty awesome. Did you know that people who learned an instrument when they were young are actually better at picking up foreign languages – for the rest of their lives? Another study showed that high school students involved in music actually do better on their SATs. Improvements can be seen in all portions of the tests, but guess which one gets the highest boost in scores? No, not math: the verbal portion. Amazing!
There are a lot more fascinating facts on how learning to play an instrument or studying music actually works on young minds. And for future reference, we grouped some of them all together in this neat little infographic we made:
Cool, huh? You can click on the image to get the full view. Let us know if you have any other little tidbit to share and we’ll research it and add it to the infographic’s next update. We also found a ton of statistics on what instruments kids prefer and how long they play them – but we’re being all mysterious and leaving that for some other time 
Oh, and one last thing! We know PNG infographics with unclickable sources can be heart-wrenching for those of us who love floundering around the web. That’s why we’re also putting them here:
Wannaplaymusic.com: How Children Benefit from Music Education In Schools
Nature.com: Musical experience shapes human brainstem encoding of linguistic pitch patterns
Nature.com: Music training for the development of auditory skills
ScienceDaily.com: Music Education Can Help Children Improve Reading Skills
Jstor: Music and Mathematics – Modest Support for the Oft-Claimed Relationship
Sage Journals: Music Lessons Enhance IQ
Taylor & Francis Online: Higher education music students’ perceptions of the benefits of participative music making
University of St. Thomas: An Investigation of Secondary School Students’ Self-Reported Reasons for Extracurricular Musical and Athletic Activities
McGill University: Intensely pleasurable responses to music correlate with activity in brain regions implicated in reward and emotion
San Marino High School Music Department: Music Education Statistics and Facts
Enjoy!