When this mother argued that the noise in her son's classroom prevented him from fully participating in classroom activities, the U.S. Access Board put together a multi-disciplinary task force of audiologists, engineers, architects, and acoustic consultants to examine the impact of classroom noise on learning. Now after two years of working on this matter, this task force has concluded that nationwide standards limiting classroom noise and reverberation are in order. Below is an advanced summary of some of the conclusions reached by members of the U.S. Access Board's task. All children need good acoustics to hear and to learn. Young children need better acoustics to hear and understand their teachers than do older children and adults because they are less familiar with language.
Young children can repeat words and sentences in quiet or in environments with minimal noise levels.
However, when these background noise levels increase, young children have difficulty in understanding what is being said to them. Children in the early grades need background noise levels significantly lower than the signal they are trying to hear. Children with hearing loss, those learning a second language, and those with auditory or attention problems need even more favorable acoustics. Children suffering from temporary hearing loss because of an ear infection, children with some permanent hearing loss as well as children learning a second language, and those children with auditory or attention problems need even more favorable classroom acoustics. These children require lower background noise levels and higher signal levels for understanding than children with normal hearing.