Noise and health of children
report
The world of the child is becoming noisier and noisier. Compared to the mid-fifties environmental noise levels (sources such as road traffic, aircraft) increased substantially, causing higher noise levels during day- and night-time at home, at school and during out- and indoors leisure time activities. Also, children spend increasingly more time in situations with (many) other children, such as in day care institutions and kindergartens, with high noise levels due to a com-bination of loud voices, loud toys, and bad acoustics. In an unknown percentage of households, nowadays television or audio-equipment is turned on for the whole day, thus creating an ever-lasting noisy environment for the child. Children may be more annoyed or otherwise adversely affected by noise than adults, in part because they possess less well-developed coping responses, and are often less able to control their environments. It is unknown to which extent aggressive behaviour, helplessness, and hyper-activity are (in part) a consequence of the everlasting noise exposure of the young and older child.
Topics
TNO Identifier
324201
Publisher
TNO
Collation
52 p.
Place of publication
Leiden