From vehicles and live concert speakers to industrial machinery, modern-age inventions have led to an increased number of noise-related hearing complaints. Day-to-day living noise from traffic and living in an urban area means children's ears are regularly bombarded by noise.
Noise can pose a serious threat to a child’s physical and psychological health, including learning and behaviours. Repeated exposure to noise during a child’s development can affect their speech, language, reading and listening. The inability to concentrate in a noisy environment can affect their ability to learn. The impact of noise pollution can cause permanent hearing loss, tinnitus and an intolerance of loud noises. It can interfere with a child’s normal sleeping pattern and effect their quality of life and noise pollution is also linked to other medical problems such as insomnia, stress, heart disease and high blood pressure.
What is a safe noise level? The National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) says that long-term exposure to noise levels above 85 decibels (dB) can cause damage. Putting that into context, a conversation is around 60dB and a fridge-freezer humming is around 45dB. Jennifer Derebery, managing director of the House Ear Clinic in Los Angeles, has guidelines of acknowledging when noise is too loud. “After loud noise, if ears ring, even transiently, it’s too loud,” she said. “If hearing is muffled after exposure, even transiently, it’s too loud. “A single, bad exposure, or multiple short exposures, which leaves ears muffled and hearing decreased or ringing, may result in permanent hearing loss.”
How can we protect children? Parents can download apps on their mobile phones to measure noise and children can wear earplugs if they’re at an event where it is likely to be loud. It is also advisable to complain about noise levels as the more people who draw attention to excessive noise, the more likely it is that reasonable noise levels will be enforced.
Solutions As awareness increases around noise pollution, so does the need for noise mitigation and protection. At Echo Barrier, noise mitigation is at the forefront of everything we do and is the reason behind our market-leading products.
Our acoustic barriers work by providing a sound barrier between a construction site, live music events and the local community. They can also be used as enclosures to isolate ongoing loud sounds from work crews on sites.
To discover our portfolio of products we have, visit: www.echobarrier.co.uk/noise-reduction-barriers/