It seems like all the qualms people have with the experimental design revolve around the duration of musical training used in your study. With that in mind, do you know of anything that will significantly increase IQ in roughly 6 weeks ('IQ' for brevity, I realize in this study you tested more specific cognitive abilities). I'm trying to get a sense for what it actually takes to change a kid's IQ. If there is something out there that can significantly increase a kids IQ in 6 weeks, it could be used in a control group as a proxy for what 6 weeks of musical training could look like if it actually helped. However if there's nothing out there that works that quickly, I'm less inclined to think that anything should be expected to work in that timeframe. Particularly if the most robust factors known to increase IQ (e.g. eating choline, or rigorous multilingual training - speaking hypothetically) take several years of dedication to the regime to start showing noticeable effects.

Two new studies by Harvard researchers show no effect of music training on the cognitive abilities of young children : science Monday, December 16, 2013 @ 12:49pm