The ASHA Leader - September 21, 2010 - (Page 16)

Classroom Acoustics: What Possibly Could Be New? by Peggy B. Nelson and Susan B. Blaeser M any audiologists and speech-language pathologists work with children, and we know that a child’s ability to hear and listen is very different from that of an adult. When it comes to designing schools, however, not everyone seems to understand the implications of this difference. Many architects and designers simply are not aware that children develop their ability to understand speech over time, and may create a school that is “good enough” for adult listening but inadequate for children. Audiologists and SLPs must be the advocates for children in school design and insist that classrooms be designed with children’s developmental needs in mind. ASHA has been actively involved for more than 15 years in the development of standards for school acoustics. In 1997 a family filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice claiming the local school was just too noisy for their child, who had a hearing loss, to have appropriate access to spoken information. ASHA got involved, as did the U.S. Access Board, an independent federal agency devoted to accessibility for people with disabilities. Around the same time, the Los Angeles Unified School District invested in room air conditioners that sometimes pumped 65 dB of sound into the room, and teachers and students pressed for quieter solutions. A flurry of activity resulted that continued a long tradition of advocacy by ASHA and other organizations (see sidebar online for a timeline of classroom acoustics activities). Noise in classrooms is unwanted sound that is usually caused by heating, ventilating, and airconditioning equipment (HVAC), noise from outside the building leaking through windows and doors, and noise from adjacent rooms and hallways coming through walls and doors. Reverberation is the persistence of sound after its source quiets and arises from sound reflecting from hard walls, floors, and ceilings. Reverberation time (RT60) is defined as the length of time in seconds required for the sound level to reduce by 60 dB once the sound source has been turned off. American National Standard So what’s really new? Significant progress has been made recently in classroom acoustics standards development. The American National Standards Institute (ANSI), which oversees the creation, promulgation, and use of thousands of standards and guidelines, recently revised and reissued the American National Standard addressing classroom acoustics (see next page). The standard, like all American National Standards, is voluntary, and becomes mandatory only if the standard is incorporated into laws such as building codes. Unfortunately, the International Code Council (ICC), which develops codes and standards used to construct homes and schools, rejected a proposal to reference the new ANSI standards in its revised building code at its May meeting (see The ASHA Leader, Aug. 3, 2010). This rejection is significant because many state and local governments adopt the International Building Code in their municipal building codes, a move that turns the voluntary guidelines into law. The next opportunity to revise the International Building Code is in 2015. Two months after this setback, the effort to require compliance with the standards shifted to the regulatory tract. The policy board of the U.S. Access Board, which is charged with developing accessibility guidelines for the Americans with Disabilities Act and Architectural Barriers Act, voted unanimously to include a reference to the new classroom acoustics standards in guidelines for both acts. If the standards become part of the rules, any entity accepting federal funding—including all public and some private schools—would be required to comply. Although the Access Board indicated that the classroom acoustics rulemaking will be placed on a fast track, the rulemaking process can take up to several years. The process involves development of the rule and cost-benefit analysis, review by the U.S. 16 September 21, 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The ASHA Leader - September 21, 2010

The ASHA Leader - September 21, 2010
Contents
Teens at Risk: "We're on the Edge of an Epidemic"
Bottom Line
Audiology
New Fluency, Cognition Diagnosis Codes
Schools 2010: Learning and Leadership in Las Vegas
RTI Progress-Monitoring Tools
Classroom Acoustics: What Possibly Could Be New?
Schools Practice: New Research and Online Resources
From the President
Schools Survey Caseload Data
Internet
Identification and Treatment of Landau-Kleffner Syndrome
Buyers Guide
Classifieds
First Person on the Last Page

The ASHA Leader - September 21, 2010