Noise pollution disrupts school work

Par destinationsante.com
Published on 06/27/2022 at 12:35 p.m.

To learn better, nothing beats silence. That said, does traffic noise really have a detrimental effect on students’ work at school? This is what Maria Foraster and Jordi Sunyer of the Barcelona Institute for Global Health wondered. In particular, they wanted to assess the impact of this noise pollution around schools on attention and working memory, two essential skills for learning, which are acquired during childhood.

To do this, they worked with 2,680 children aged 7 to 10 and educated in 38 schools in Barcelona, ​​Spain. During the 12 months of follow-up, the participants completed several cognitive tests assessing these skills, and their evolution over time. Ambient noise measurements were also carried out during the same period around their schools.

As a result, the more the noise was present and louder, the more the students’ memory and attention were affected. For example, the researchers note that a 5 decibel increase in outside noise at school slows the development of working memory by 11.4% compared to the average. “Our study therefore suggests that unwanted external stimuli such as noise can strongly affect the process of acquiring cognitive skills during childhood,” the scientists conclude. One more reason to reduce traffic in cities?

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