Sound quality in daycares linked with social development of kids

NASHVILLE: During some of their most formative years, many children attend daycare centres that are located away from their homes. They require a friendly, healthy setting with engaging conversation and discussion while they are there. This relies on the acoustics of the daycare centre.

In his presentation at the 183rd Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Kenton Hummel of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln went over how soundscape research in daycares could improve the outcomes and experiences for kids and staff.

“Few studies have rigorously examined the indoor sound quality of child care centres,” said Hummel. “The scarcity of research may deprive providers and engineers of providing the highest quality of care possible. This study aims to better understand the sound environment of child care centres to pave the way toward better child care.”

The goal of the research is to understand the relationship between noise and people. High noise levels and long periods of loud fluctuating sounds can negatively impact children and staff by increasing the effort it takes to communicate. In contrast, a low background noise level allows for meaningful speech, which is essential for language, brain, cognitive, and social/emotional development.

Hummel is a member of the UNL Soundscape Lab led by Erica Ryherd. Their team collaborated with experts in engineering, sensing, early child care, and health to monitor three daycare centres for 48-hour periods. They also asked staff to evaluate the sound in their workplace. From there, they used machine learning to characterize the acoustic environment and determine what factors influence the child and provider experience.

“Recent work in offices, hospitals, and schools has utilized machine learning to understand their respective environments in a way that goes beyond typical acoustic analyses,” said Hummel. “This work utilizes similar machine learning techniques to build and expand on that work.”