One possibility is that music ability is associated with good auditory
memory. Adults who had musical training in childhood show better verbal
memory than those without musical training (Chan et al., 1998). Table 1
shows the means and standard deviations for the digit span task (from
the WISC-R). Digit Span was significantly correlated with music in 4year-olds
and pitch in 5-year-olds, as expected (Table 4). Interestingly, as
can also be seen in Table 4, digit span was significantly correlated with
reading in the younger, but not in the older, age group. Perhaps as children
become more proficient at phonemic awareness, auditory memory becomes