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GROWING UP WITH THE ARTS:
06
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.