Connected Along the Brain Coast

We’re all part of a local Brain Health Network – whether you’re a resident, researcher, clinician or community advocate.

During October's Train the Brain campaign, Palm Health Foundation highlights local innovators within the Brain Health Network demonstrating the power of cross-sector collaboration and contributing to the Brain Coast's growing national and global recognition for advancing brain health across the lifespan – from early childhood to healthy aging.

Grace Notes Music Foundation is proving that music isn't just an art form—it’s brain science.

• For an iCare client who has autism and echolalia, Grace Note’s Mindful Music program helped her recognize facial expressions, understand emotions, and express her thoughts more independently. A breakthrough came during a museum visit. Asked by her companion what a girl in a painting was feeling, instead of repeating the question as she had done in the past, she identified the girl's emotion on her own: "Sad.”

“Music provides a unique pathway to strengthen communication, self-regulation, confidence, creativity, and connection in early childhood,” said Grace Notes founder and executive director Sandra Baran. “For older students and adults with disabilities, music can also serve as a powerful tool for emotional expression, relationship building, and overall well-being.”

Jed Maness, Grace Notes Development Director, explains why the connection between music and our brain is so exceptional. “Music is the one activity we know of that stimulates every single part of the brain—the artistic focus, the rhythm, the counting, the lyrics—simultaneously.”

And because active music-making strengthens core cognitive functions, including memory, spatial reasoning, and attention span, those benefits "transfer" over into non-musical areas, predicting higher verbal memory, executive functioning, and language skills throughout life.

Grace Notes is also demonstrating how music creates the brain benefits of belonging.

The majority of children in Music Together are from Spanish-speaking households. Parents download the songs the children are learning, singing with their children at home, helping them with their own language skills. “You can tell when a child comes back to music class, and they know the song that I taught the prior week because they're going home and playing the music with their family,” Lea Roy, Grace Notes Programs Manager, said. “The music creates a sense of community among parents I haven’t even met.”

For the neurodivergent individuals reached by Grace Notes, music is their pathway to communicate and connect in a world where they are sometimes left out. “To be excluded is known to be one of the coldest things that a human can bear,” Maness said. “We bring people together in community with dignity and give them the tools to express their feelings and needs to their caregivers, fulfilling not just neurological and emotional health, but their overall well-being.”

Looking ahead, Maness sees Grace Notes playing a vital role in shaping the Brain Coast by uniting educators, healthcare providers, researchers, and mental health advocates. “Grace Notes has a natural place in this conversation across the Brain Health Network,” Maness said. “Music has the potential to be used much more intentionally—much like a prescription, a dosage that helps to heal our minds and bodies.”