Finding the reasons why children have learning problems at a basic level can be a difficult experience for parents and guardians. It is imperative that parents and guardians pay proper attention to the environment that fits the classroom where their children are taught. Research has shown that a significant percentage of the number of children may have their learning experience hampered by extreme noise and reverberation. As a parent, you should take steps to find out if the classroom in which your child is taught needs acoustic remediation. If the issue of reverberation and extreme noise is not controlled properly, it could cause educational failure and retardation in children.

Reverb problem

Reverberation remains one of the issues that could make the learning process a terrible experience for children. Once a room is reverberant, it lacks the ability to absorb sound, and this will not allow children to hear and capture the content of the tutorials given by their teacher. When there is a case of extreme reverberation, it will be difficult for students to understand what is being taught. The good news about reverb is that it can be treated. There are several tips to keep in mind when you want to know if reverb is the main problem. These tips may include;

• Painted tiles in the classroom

• Classroom ceilings are above ten feet.

• The classroom consists of a solid ceiling that is devoid of acoustical tiles.

Check background noise

The causes of background noise are as follows; adjacent land uses, ductwork in adjoining rooms, and HVAC equipment. Getting to the root causes of background noise will require the expertise of a professional acoustical consultant. You can take the following series of tests in a vacant classroom:

1.1. Turning off air conditioning

The first step in understanding the classroom environment is to ask the teacher or instructor to turn off heating, ventilating, and air conditioning equipment for critical lessons. It should be noted that equipment that makes more noise than a loud whisper can change the way a consonant sounds to children.

1.2. Check for outside noise in the form of car traffic

The constant presence of noise will hinder speech clarity in the teaching space and disrupt the purpose of learning.

1.3. Search for sounds in contiguous spaces

This method works best when you have all HVAC equipment turned off. Once you hear sounds from adjacent spaces or rooms, or movement from activities in other rooms within the same environment, the classroom may not be fully insulated against noise diffusion. It has been proven that when there is an abnormal level of background noise, teachers or instructors will be forced to increase the tempo of their speeches. Also, here is another technique that involves utilizing all HVAC and lighting appliances in full working order. Find the place that has the highest volume of noise in the classroom, close your eyes as this will not allow you to read the teacher’s lips, and pay attention to how the teacher mumbles some words that share the same sounds from a close distance. . If you find you’re having trouble getting the phrase right, the classroom most likely calls for an acoustic revival.

You can use a device called a sound level meter to check background noise. Make sure the sound meter is of durable quality that can provide analysis down to thirty-five decibels. Be sure to test classrooms to discover sources of noise. Once a classroom has a vacant background sound intensity greater than 35 decibels, that classroom is unable to provide the lucid speech young children need for reading and language acquisition.

Talk to an acoustician and ask them to thoroughly check classrooms and other spaces to learn the real causes of extraneous sounds. They will be able to suggest appropriate measures that will help you get rid of any threatening sounds.