Beyond Bonding: Music and the Developing Infant Brain

Lullabies have been a part of human civilization for about as long as we have written history; even the Ancient Babylonians etched them into clay more than 4,000 years ago. But the themes are often dark, suggesting that maybe, lullabies aren’t just for the babies. We talked to Laurel Trainor, PhD, who studies what infants hear, and how music affects both them and their caregivers. She was joined by music therapists Helen Shoemark, PhD, RMT, who takes a sociological approach to understanding the capacity of parents to be musical and Deanna Hanson-Abromeit, PhD, MT-BC who has created effective music-based interventions geared towards infants.