The Auditory Environment at Early Intervention Groups for Young Children With Hearing Loss: Signal to Noise Ratio, Background Noise, and Reverberation.
Annerenée Meijer, Michel Ruben Benard, Aart Woonink and 2 others
PMID 39789707WHAT IT FOUND
In Dutch early intervention groups for children with hearing loss, the rooms met acoustic standards when empty.
But once the children arrived, the speech-to-noise ratio was adequate for only 42% of the time. The groups are quieter than regular daycare, yet still noisy.
Key findings
01All seven rooms met the reverberation standard for typical-hearing classrooms, but only one met the stricter standard recommended for children with hearing loss.
02The median speech-to-noise ratio for professional speech was +13 dB, and only 42% of the time exceeded the recommended +15 dB.
03Occupied noise levels in these groups were lower than those reported in regular daycare centers for typically hearing children.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study only looked at hearing aid users, so it does not describe the experience of children with cochlear implants. The children wore the microphones on their chests, which captures their own noise and the noise they generate more closely than a room microphone would. The LENA software automatically labels sounds, which can lead to some mislabeling of speech and noise. The analysis excluded segments labeled as overlapping sounds or other child speech, which may have missed some of the background noise competing with the professional's speech. Some children used remote microphone systems during the sessions, which would have improved their personal listening conditions beyond what the room noise levels suggest.
Declared interests
Funded by zonmw. No other conflicts of interest are declared in the provided text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that these early intervention groups are acoustically poor because the signal-to-noise ratio was low. The occupied noise levels were actually lower than those found in regular daycare centers. The low signal-to-noise ratio reflects the reality of young children playing, not a failure of the room design.