Language skill has link to rhythm

According to a new study, people with better rhythmic skills also had enhanced neural response to speech sounds. The researchers claim that music practice could be helpful in developing other skills such as reading. The study involved over 100 adolescents who had to tap their fingers to a beat that they could hear. The accuracy was measured by how close the taps were to the beats of a metronome. The brainwaves of the participants were also measured using electrodes. This process measured the brain’s electrical activity as a response to sound. The research revealed that people with more musical training had better neural response to speech. "It turns out that kids who are poor readers have a lot of difficulty doing this motor task and following the beat. In both speech and music, rhythm provides a temporal map with signposts to the most likely locations of meaningful input," said Prof Nina Kraus, of the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory at Northwestern University in Illinois.