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GROWING UP WITH THE ARTS:
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    ChildArt  |  Art for Health  What Science




             Can Tell Us








                The National Endowment for the Arts is a        childhood
             federal government agency. It awards grants        and youth.
             to support the arts and creativity around the      Here are
             country, in communities large and small. The       a few examples:
             agency is also the proud collaborator on a         •  In a study of “arts enrichment” programs
             large, groundbreaking study that we believe           in Head Start pre-schools in Philadelphia,

             will produce valuable findings about the impor-       West Chester University researchers found
             tance of the arts, creativity, and imagination        that economically disadvantaged children
             to children’s everyday lives.                         who learned in the arts showed lower lev-
                Led by our partners at the National Institutes     els of poverty-related stress, compared
             of Health, this study (called “ABCD” for short)       with similar groups of students who did not

             is collecting and analyzing data from thousands       receive arts programming. In previous stud-
             of children as they grow into teenagers and,          ies, the researchers have noted greater
             eventually, young adults. The study will              school readiness, vocabulary growth, and

             track the evolving brain structure of                 emotion regulation skills among arts-en-
             these children, their social and cogni-               riched preschool students.
             tive development, and their health and             •  In a George Mason University study of
             educational patterns.                                 more than 31,000 Miami children, children

                Because the study also will measure how            in 6th, 7th, and 8th grade who took an arts
             kids participate in arts and cultural activities, it    elective (music, dance, drama, or visual

             should be possible for researchers to under-          art) were shown to have higher GPAs and
             stand whether and how arts participation—over         math and reading scores than students who
             several years—affects this critical phase of          did not take these electives—even after
             childhood development.                                the researchers accounted for other fac-
                Through high-quality research that the             tors. Another study by researchers at Tex-
             Arts Endowment has supported elsewhere, we            as A&M University and the University
             already have many promising indicators about          of Missouri featured more than 10,500

             the potential benefits of arts participation in       elementary school students in Houston.
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