Did you miss out? Our editor Pauli Pallaskorpi, Concept Developer for Education in Finland, attended Euronoise in Crete – and here are his main takeaway bullet points from the afternoon session: Effect of room acoustics and noise on speech intelligibility and task performance in schools’.
Experimental investigation of effect of background noise and reverberation on listening comprehension of pre-school children. Presenter: Kawai Keiji
- Children from birth to age 5 are involved in listening and language skill development during this stage of their life and need the best acoustic conditions possible.
Effect of sound absorption in a classroom on class activities: A field experiment on the installation of sound-absorbing materials in kindergarten. Presenter: Noguchi Saki
- Issues in the sound environment exist in recent facilities of early childhood education and care in Japan:
- Noise
- Reverberations that last too long 3) Teachers´ lack of awareness towards the sound environment
- Installation of sound-absorber in classrooms has been an effective solution to these issues: The mitigation of noise, improvement in word intelligibility
- Results: The installation of the sound-absorber influences the behavior such as the listening to the children´s voices, and children´s utterance, easiness of listening and calmness. The major change in reverberation increased the consciousness of the teacher about the importance of the sound environment. After installation of acoustic material, the intrusion noise lowered, the quiet impression was remarkable, and it became easy to listen to the children´s voices. The teacher intentionally used a quiet voice. In the lunch scene after installation the occurrence of a loud voice, such as shouting, decreased, and the direction of the sound source became clear.
Room acoustics in schools in South Tyrol – Italy. Presenter: Oberkalmsteiner Richard
- 2013 Decision of the provincial government:
- Introductory remarks: Every child, every pupil and every student has the fundamental right to participate to education and to development. This cannot be reduced because of the pupil´s impairments
- Duties of the local communities: for example, installation and maintenance of acoustic ceilings.
- Conclusions: Pupils who know benefits of good classroom acoustics with short reverberation times never want to go back to classroom with longer reverberation.
Communication behavior and workload of students and teachers in highly absorbent classrooms. Presenter: Tiesler Gerhard
- Effects of noise on human: Sleep disorder, Disturbance of communication, Physical reaction, Disturbance of cognitive functions.
- After the acoustic refurbishment the working noise level during student-centered teaching lowered by 13 Decibels.
- What happens? Improved room acoustics lead to improved communication, and reduced working SPL, reduced speech effort, causing lower stress, lower fatigue, and change of behavior.
- Good acoustics is a measurable ergonomic factor and contributes to better human working conditions in school environments.
A field study on the acoustic environment of special needs education classrooms. Presenter: Ueno Kanako
- The number of children in special-needs education has been increasing a lot after 2006.
- The purpose of the study was to investigate the requirement for acoustic environment of special-needs education classrooms and the method to improve it.
- Results: The necessity of quiet place where the children can escape from noise.
- Summary: A questionnaire survey demonstrated the problems in the auditory environment of a school for special-needs children.
On the acoustical design of university classrooms: Effects of room acoustics on behavioral and subjective indices of listening effort. Presenter: Visentin Chiara
- Maintaining high level of listening effort for long periods can have negative consequences on learning and cognitive achievements of listeners (fatigue).
For more information about the session, please contact Pauli Pallaskorpi.
