Musical Product Research
WHY MUSICAL PRODUCTS OR SPEECH DO NOT ENRICH THE DEVELOPING BABY
Several products claiming major benefits for the unborn child are being marketed, with new arrivals scheduled. Unfortunately, unlike BabyPlus, none are able to produce verifiable results through standard controlled clinical trials for the following reasons:
1. For over 20 years, repeated placement of microphones inside the womb has revealed that most sounds in a mother’s environment--television, radio, CD players, normal conversation, maternal singing--quite clearly reach the fetus. Considering modern society includes these sonic features as an everyday part of life, all unborn babies are being exposed to the same stimuli—yet why are they not being born consistently gifted? The answer is elementary: Neither music or speech has any substantial or lasting effect upon the fetus, and no reputable test has been able to prove so. Prenatal products promoting developmental gains—whether cognitive, social, or creative--through music or speech are simply untrue; this false advertising leads parents to believe their children will receive lasting advantages from such merchandise--a highly deceptive and cruel practice, leading to later family problems.
2. Testimonials or anecdotes--from parents, friends, or even professionals--supporting these ineffective products are hardly the same as controlled, comparative, independent evaluations conducted under strict scientific scrutiny, and must include a sufficient number of matched subjects to achieve statistical significance. Only BabyPlus has followed these standard procedures through multiple trials.
3. Musical products which maintain that parent-child bonding results from their use forget to mention that any practice a mother or father may engage with the fetus (enjoying a meal, movie, or exercise) has the identical effect, so why purchase what is naturally available--and free.
4. Decades of mainstream research have shown that the fetal brain imprints upon the sound of a mother’s blood as it pulses past the placenta--but music does not produce this effect at all. Why is it that newborns and infants prefer the simplest melodies over complex music such as Mozart (whose so-called learning benefits have been thoroughly discredited by several major recent studies), and calm to heartbeat sounds? Through a process protected by copyright and patent, only BabyPlus builds upon the womb’s natural baseline in a curricular fashion; no other product remotely duplicates this approach or its proven advantages.
5. Parents have the absolute right to expect demonstrable results from technology claiming to endow their unborn baby with lifetime assets; compare the information on this website with that of other approaches, and understand why BabyPlus is the only safe and effective prenatal enrichment product they should consider--for their child’s lasting benefit.
New Studies Question Music's Effect On Brain Development
As reported in the March 4, 1999 New York Times, numerous professional evaluations are finding no proof for claims that music can produce learning benefits for either infants or children.
The article, “Mozart and the SAT’s,” by psychologist Ellen Winner at Boston College, and Lois Hetland--both researchers with Harvard’s Project Zero--summarizes recent clinical assessments which show that neither early nor later cognitive gains appear from exposure to music listening or performance. Their own research since 1997 focuses on alleged intelligence advantages of classical music upon the very young: “we have found no actual scientific evidence on the effect of music on infant brain development and subsequent school success.” Particularly challenged is the compact disk entitled “Music for the Mozart Effect”--which purports to elevate IQ--based upon the work of psychologist Frances Rauscher at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh. But after college students heard 10 minutes of a piano sonata, and though demonstrated spatial reasoning gains, “this ‘Mozart effect’ was short-lived, lasting only 10 to 15 minutes. Further, while young pianists enhanced their spatial reasoning powers, “this difference appeared on only one of several tests. And it is impossible to say how long the improvement lasts. Children were tested within days of their latest piano lesson.” The article emphasizes that “fifteen research teams have tried to replicate these results, but only four have clearly supported the original findings,” and “there is a long and uncertain chain from a transient effect in the laboratory on a few spatial tests to the demonstration of long-term dividends for mastering basic academic skills.”
None of these new findings detracts from the obvious value of music, whether enjoyed by listeners or performers--for its own sake; the problem arises when boosts in mental abilities are claimed, and the evidence for any durable benefits therefore appears marginal at best.
It is precisely this rationale which led Brent Logan to devise the only effective sonic influence for unborn children, curricularized progressions of maternal heartbeat appropriate to the fetus. That is why the technology incorporating this principle, BabyPlus, consistently produces postnatal outcomes in every professional trial which neither music nor speech applied prenatally has been able to register.
The Mozart Myth
Two independent studies published in the August 26 issue of Nature challenge the idea that listening to the music of Mozart will increase intelligence. Christopher Chabris of Harvard Medical School analyzed 16 earlier studies and found no significant evidence for gains in either abstract reasoning of spatial thinking. The other report, by Kenneth Steele of Appalachian State University, failed to reproduce results of the 1993 study by Frances Rauscher and Gordon Shaw.
Based upon that former work, an industry of CD's, audiocassettes, and books was launched, claiming IQ improvement by merely being exposed to Mozart’s music. As a result, the states of Georgia, Tennessee, and South Dakota began contributing free classical music CD’s to new mothers for playing to their infants.
Applied to the prenatal period, this recent evidence strongly reinforces the 1982 prelearning theory of Brent Logan, which maintains that neither music nor speech can substantially benefit the unborn child compared with progressive variants in the sound of maternal heartbeat as recorded in the womb. His concept led to the BabyPlus fetal enrichment system, which has been found significantly effective in several evaluations, including that by a physician team at the Children’s Rehabilitation Center, Moscow, where BabyPlus was compared with classical music and a control group; this clinical trial is detailed in the popular television documentary, “Brave New Babies,” which has aired repeatedly in many countries.