Noise and children’s hearing

According to the American Academy of Otolaryngology, three million children under the age of 18 have some kind of hearing difficulty. A study by Judy Montgomery in 1990 found that 7% of second-graders, 15% of eighth-graders, and 13% of twelfth-graders and 26% of high school seniors who played in the band had a measurable hearing loss. As early as 1972, David Lipscomb studied 1,000 sixth, ninth, and twelfth graders and found that 3.8% of sixth graders, 11% of ninth graders and 10.6% of twelfth graders failed the hearing screening. A follow-up study by David Lipscomb in 1972 studied the hearing of college freshmen and found that 32.9% of one group and 60.7% in a second group had a measurable high-frequency hearing loss. In a more recent study (1996), the Center for Hearing and Communication found that 10% of ninth graders failed a hearing screening and that these students had never before been identified as having hearing difficulties. Furthermore, their teachers reported that these students exhibited learning and behavior problems in the class.

Noise harms our children’s hearing, language acquisition, reading and learning skills, and social interactions. The effects of noise on our children’s development has received too little focus. Parents must make it their business to lower the decibel level in their children’s lives. Health experts agree that continuous exposure to noise over 85 decibels (about the loudness level of city traffic), over time, will eventually harm hearing.