Whistle while you work?

There is some debate about whether it is helpful to listen to music while you work and the answer is: it depends. The key is that we need to maximise the cognitive space available to us to engage with the task in hand. Thus, if one is attending to the music, one is wasting precious cognitive space on this, reducing one's ability to problem solve. I myself find that I can't have background music on, however bland, without finding myself listening to it. However, there are likely to be many noises in our environment, and a child who finds focus hard is likely to react to them all, having his attention drawn away from what he is meant to be doing. If this is the case for your child, then playing the right kind of music can mask those noises that interrupt his concentration, allowing him to focus better. The idea is to choose music to which your child will be quickly habituated. We all know that feeling when the heating goes off and we suddenly realise that the room is much quieter than it was, although we had been completely unaware of the heating's hum beforehand. We had become habituated to the sound. So, if your child thinks playing music helps him, help him choose some instrumental music without any major crescendos. If music isn't helping, you could also try some different sounds, for example the sound of rain or a waterfall. You'll know if it's working by monitoring his work output. As with so many interventions, it's all about finding out what works for your child.