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I've heard that playing music at night for babies and toddlers (i.e. children under 2 years old) can cause or contribute to Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD/ADHD) when they get older.

Is there any truth to, or basis for, this claim?

Brian M. Hunt
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  • Who tortures their kids with perpetual music at night? – Lagerbaer Apr 18 '11 at 02:40
  • Where did you get the idea for this one? – Terry Apr 18 '11 at 06:36
  • I would guess its from theory ADD/ADHD comes from being over stimulated ( Personal guess ) – EKS Apr 18 '11 at 13:08
  • A relative of mine said it's a claim made in a book called "Distracted", which I take to be this one: http://www.amazon.com/Distracted-Erosion-Attention-Coming-Dark/dp/1591026237 – Brian M. Hunt Apr 18 '11 at 14:09
  • @Lagerbaer - there are a bunch of things sold that play music for babies at night. SOMEONE must be using them :) – user5341 Apr 18 '11 at 14:40
  • Does this mean I should I get that Polka band out of the kid's room? – Monkey Tuesday Apr 19 '11 at 00:58
  • This isn't an answer because I can't site a specific study to disprove it. But as someone who has researched a bit of ADHD I would be quite skeptical of this claim. ADHD appears to be caused by a lack of production of specific neurotransmitters, and thus is primarily biological and unlikely to be affected by non-biological environmental factors like how one was raised (save where it affects things like nutrition) or surrounding noise. Furthermore ADHD appears to be linked to lower socioeconomic status, which likely would be negatively correlated with music playing for a child. – dsollen Feb 12 '16 at 20:17
  • @EKS While no one really knows where ADHD comes from (lots of theories, for something supposedly biological and 'simple' it's surprising how little is known) However, ADHD is not from over-stimulation, an ADD person can be easily distracted by *lack* of stimulation, since their internal mind is where they find most distractions. AD/HD is likely due to an inability to easily decide which stimuli to 'filter out', less about amount of stimulus then how one processes those available; as evidenced by otherwise counter-intuitive 'hyper focus' where AD/HD are *over* focused. – dsollen Feb 12 '16 at 20:22

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When I was a child (and now with my newborn son) my family has always had the habit of playing music or having some type of background noise going during sleep time. This could be anything from the aforementioned music, to a TV on low volume in another room (but still audible from the crib), to the window air conditioner in the summer.

The reason behind this is that if the child grows accustomed to any type of background noise while sleeping, it will actually end up leading to longer and deeper sleep because the child will no longer be disturbed by the slightest creak in the floorboards. Maybe me and my son are just naturally good sleepers, but my son (who is now almost 10 months) has been sleeping for 8-10 hours every night without waking for 6 months now.

As far as the claim to this potentially leading to ADD/ADHD I find that rather hard to believe and can't find any legitimate studies to back this claim up. ADD/ADHD in itself is way too overdiagnosed as it is, and even with legitimate cases of the disorder I would imagine that there are plenty of things that are occurring (or not occurring) during the child's waking time that would have a greater impact on brain development and risk for the disorder.

TheTXI
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