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White Hutchinson Leisure & Learning Group, Kansas City, MO, USA

Acoustic for Young Children

In 2002, the Acoustical Society of America published acoustical performance criteria, design requirements and design guidelines for new school classrooms and other learning spaces such as child care centers and special services buildings. These criteria, requirements and guidelines are keyed to the acoustical qualities needed to achieve a high degree of speech intelligibility in learning spaces.

Many children under the age of 5 have either expressive or receptive language disorders or fluid in their ears, which means their ability to discern speech has been compromised. Research studies have shown, for example, that children with language disorders have 10% to 40% poorer speech intelligibility in background noise than children without these disorders.

Also, it is not uncommon for children with an autistic disorder or another pervasive developmental disorder to have a hyperactive response to auditory stimuli. When children's disorganized central nervous systems becomes overwhelmed by the noise, reverberation or echoes in the room, it is difficult for children with these disabilities to pay attention and to learn.

Children whose first language is not English may have limited English proficiency, as well. Their limited vocabulary and inability to "fill in the blanks" when partial communication occurs in difficult hearing situations have been shown to reduce intelligibility.

The new acoustic standards are far more complex than just adding a higher-rated acoustic tile at the end of the design development process. The design guidelines look at noise control from HVAC and plumbing equipment and classroom reverberation times. Good architectural practices should be adopted to achieve these objectives early in the design process.

For those of you who missed our previous reference in another newsletter, you can get a copy of ANSI 12.60-2002, Acoustical Performance Criteria, Design Requirements and Guidelines for Schools by going to the Acoustical Society of America web site at http://asa.aip.org and downloading a copy for $35. We are pleased to share with you that one of our design alliance members, Thorburn Associates (www.TA-Inc.com) , were instrumental in getting the guidelines published.

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