Science News: Researchers have debunked the much-publicized idea, known as the Mozart effect, that listening to classical music improves children's ability to reason... [However] learning to play a musical instrument or to sing [may do so]. Six-year-olds who took weekly piano or singing lessons throughout the school year exhibited an average IQ increase of 7.0 points, says psychologist E. Glenn Schellenberg of the University of Toronto at Mississauga. Other 6-year-olds who either took weekly drama lessons or received no extracurricular lessons displayed an average IQ rise of 4.3 points, Schellenberg reports in the August Psychological Science.