If you’re like me, you listen to music at all times of the day. I listen to it walking to class, when I’m sitting in my room, when I exercise, when I sleep. Music is a huge part of my life. Just recently I came across an article that detailed a study which found that music therapy helps children and adolescents with depression problems. I immediately found this study interesting because I’ve known that music is very beneficial to the development of children’s brains but I didn’t know it could have an affect on behavior. 
The study, which was carried out in Ireland at Queen’s University in Belfast, studied 251 children and young adults over a 3 year span who were being studied for emotional, behavioral, or developmental problems. 128 children received the usual treatment and 123 received the music therapy in addition to the regular treatment. When the treatment ended, researchers found that those who received the musical therapy had “significantly improved self-esteem and significantly reduced depression compared with those who received treatment without music therapy.”
The biggest problem question is what exactly constitutes music therapy? The article I found never went into detail with how exactly they were treating the children. What kind of music were they playing, for how long, in what environment? The answers to these questions are essential for understanding how exactly the study works. I looked online and could not find any other information on the study. I’m assuming this is because it’s fairly recent. Because of this it’s hard to rule out confounding variables. However reverse causation can be ruled out since the children being studied had these problems before being exposed to the therapy. The biggest factor of the study was that it was the largest experiment ever conducted on music therapy, making the sample size more than adequate.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/284296.php
I can completely relate to your love of music! Music therapy is a topic that I have always found incredibly interesting; therefore, I really enjoyed reading your post. Also, I found this article that further explores the different areas of music therapy: http://altmedicine.about.com/od/musicsoundtherapy/a/benefits_music_therapy.htm
This post was extremely interesting, and it made me think of where the idea of music therapy started. It turns out that music therapy was started in Ancient Greece. “Ancient Greek philosophers believed that music could heal both the body and the soul” (American Cancer Society). This was passed on, and today it is a major part of our society. There has been many tests to see if musical therapy actually works. Some studies have showed that music therapy in chemotherapy patients eases nausea, and in hospice patients improves their comfort.
I agree that music is a huge part of my life, I listen to it wherever I go. And it’s interesting that you bring up the point that it helps people with depression and other behavioral issues. This grabbed my interest because a friend of mine got in a skateboarding accident and fell into a coma 6 years ago. They were going to let him go because of the amount of brain damage done; however, someone came in to attempt some sort of music therapy to see his brain function although he had not responded to any of the other tests. It turns out he responded to the music. They don’t know why this is but now his eyes are still closed and all but he is able to respond to simple commands and such. Therefore, I strongly believe that music definitely has a huge impact on people and their well-being.