Acoustical Treatments

Suggestions are made by parents of hearing impaired children who have gathered information to facilitate fact finding for other parents and professionals who advocate for children with hearing loss under IDEA and ADA. We recommend that consideration for purchases be made after the room measurements, reverberation time ,and ambient sound levels have been appraised scientifically. This can be done with a formula that can be found on the Access Board website. In some rooms, reverberation can be addressed with sound panels.

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Acoustical Sound Panels

Sound panels are free standing, or easy to hang, and to move from classroom to classroom. Reverberation and sound levels are obtained scientifically with specific room measurements, surface materials, and by the Sebring formula. A professional acoustician would be helpful, but if cost inhibitive, some scientific measurements can be made to provide relief from reverberation and noise.

A professional acoustical engineer can be very useful in isolating the specific frequency problem areas for a particular child. For example, fiberglass insulation or open cell foam are effective in mid to high frequencies but not effective at frequencies below 500Hz

Echo Busters for the Classroom or home. The panels are very attractive and light. These are easy to hang and useful in the classroom, at home, or other listening environments for improving speech intelligibility. Made in the USA!
http://www.echobusters.com/page5.html
Call 631-253=0001 (888) 324 6287 "Echo Buster" Panels: They help absorb reflecting sound waves, or reverberation. Panels look like a blank, stretched canvas on a frame. They are fire rated. Good for mid to high frequencies.
Standard Colors are: Quartz, White, Med. Grey, Grey Mix and Black, almost any color can be made for a little extra cost. Also available on stands.
Some Standard Sizes are 4'X12" , 4'X24" 6'X12", 6'X24"
Fire Rating: Fabric is A, and foam is B. ( Can be made to A with fiberglass )
Absorbtion: .5 at 500, 1 at 1000Hz, 1 at 4000Hz
Double Busters (Diffuse and absorb sound) Available in many sizes: 4'X12"

Armstrong World Industries
www.armstrong.com< /A>

Acoustical Solutions
http://www.acousticalsolutions.com/products/panels/alphasorb.asp
Phone 1 800 782 5742
AlphaSorb Fabric Wrapped Wall Panels up to 4'X10'
Class 1 Fire Rated
Sound Absorbtion coefficients:
2" thick, 125Hz,.46, 250Hz, .1., 500Hz .1.07, 1000Hz 1.05, 2000Hz, 1.10, 4000Hz, 1.10
2'X6' 2" thickness $102.00
Sound Suede Fabric Wrapped wall panels, 6'X2', $150.00
Sound Absorbtion Coefficients 250Hz, 1., 500Hz, 1.07, 1000Hz, 1.05, 2000Hz, 1.10, 4000Hz, 1.10

Web: www.armstrong.com

Lamvin Inc.
http://www.lamvin.com/bpap.htm
7992 Miramar Road
San Diego, CA 92126-4212
Phone: 800-446-6329 / Fax: (858) 693-9323
Kathy Medlin

Acoustic Sciences Corporation (ASC) was founded by Acoustic Engineer/Physicist Arthur M. Noxon, PE,MSME,MS
"Acousticsciences.com,, made the custom panel. That was approx 2' by 3' = 6
sq ft. for $70 ." It's been hanging on my wall for months with a simple, common thumb tack." Monte Stern

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Classroom Sound Field Systems can then be used to further assist with signal to noise ratio. These are only to be considered after the acoustics have been fixed.

Audio Enhancement, infrared system about $1,200.00. Owned and run by parents of hearing impaired children who are oral.
A system comes with four speakers that go in the ceiling tiles and four speakers for the wall.
Audio Enhancement, 800-383-9362 Fax: 801-254-3802

LightSPEED Technologies, Inc.<
Toll Free 1-800-732-8999
Phone 503-684-5538
Fax 503-684-3197 Light speed sells infra-red with a flat speaker that hangs on the wall.
Because of the size of the larger flat speaker Lightning Speed markets, the sound drops off only 3 dB per doubling of distance for a short distance and eventually decays at 6 dB/dd like everything else. The speaker is made to look like a map of the world so it's hardly intrusive and has some favorable sound propagation properties, too.
http://213.86.36.8/nxtsound/index.asp
http://www.lightspeed-tek.com/products/LES311TX.html

look under acoustical modifications

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Thirteen pertinent facts about hearing loss and its impact on the lives of children:

1. Our present hearing screening procedures identify less than 50% of the children with significant hearing problems.1,2,3

2. Medically, a child is not considered to have abnormal hearing until his/her hearing is worse than 25 dB. A 25 dB hearing loss is slightly worse than plugging your ears with your fingers. We screen in school at 20-25 dB. 4

3. The typical ear infection causes a "plugged ear" hearing loss. Two-thirds of preschoolers have at least one episode of ear problems and 16% of preschoolers have six or more episodes. One-half of all episodes of ear problems go undetected by parents or teachers. Even with good medical follow up, 10% of preschoolers continue to have chronic ear problems during critical language development years. 4,5

4. The difference between reading comprehension and grade equivalencies for normal hearing children and those with 25 dB hearing losses 6:

5. The difference between expected and actual performance on language tests 6,7:

6. Of the learning disabled population, 20-25% have histories of, or ongoing ear problems related to, hearing loss. As many as 38% have been found to have abnormal hearing thresholds. Sufficient data is available to suggest that children with early, recurrent ear problems are at risk for developing delays in auditory, language and academic skills.8

7. Eighty-nine percent of hyperactive children have three or more episodes of ear problems and 74% have had 10 or more. Of those receiving medication for hyperactivity, 94% have had three or more episodes of ear problems and 68% have had 10 or more.9

8. For the Down's Syndrome population, the incidence of hearing loss ranges from 23-90%, and 40-50% have hearing losses greater than 25 dB in both ears.10

9. When the Special Education Population was considered in two studies, one found that 75% and the other found 84% of these students had abnormal hearing levels.11,12

10. Of children whose parents identified them as having gifted characteristics via a short checklist 66% were found to be in the gifted range on the Standford Binet. Seventy-five percent of those who fit the characteristics, but tested below the gifted range, had experienced chronic ear infections in infancy.13

11. Children with hearing loss only in one ear (30dB or greater) have 10 times the risk for failing a grade in school. Almost 50% of unilaterally hearing-impaired students have failed one or more grades in school or are receiving support services in school.14

12. Noise-induced hearing loss is a serious concern. Only 3% of children in grades 1-3 were found to have high pitch loss, presumably due to noise exposure. The incidence in high school leaps to 22% of the student population.15

13.The effectiveness of hearing instruments can become reduced for students in the regular educational setting. In the presence of typical levels of classroom noise, a student's ability to understand may drop to 60% or even as low as 27% if there is no carpeting.16,17

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REFERENCES

1. Kokko E: Chronic secretary Otitis Media in children. Acta Otolaryng (Suppl) 197 4; 7-44.

2. Downs M & Blager F: The Otitis prone child. Dev and Behav Ped 1982; June, (3:2): 106-113.

3. Bluestone C. Berry Q & Paradise J: Audiometry and tympanometry in relation to middle ear effusions in children. Laryngoscope 1973; 83: 594-604.

4. Downs M: Contribution of mild hearing loss to auditory language problems. In R Roeser and M Downs' (eds) Auditory Disorder in School Children. New York: Tieme-Stratton, 1981.

5. Northern JL: Otitis Media: Screening Young Children for Communication Disorders. Presentation in North Mankato, MN Jan 29, 1986.

6. Davis J: Hard of Hearing Children in the Schools. Presentation in St. Cloud, MN, May 17 1985.

7. Matkin, N: Changing Characteristics and the Implications to Clinical and Educational Services in the Hearing Impaired Child. Presentation in Minneapolis, MN, April 16, 1988.

8. Reicham J & Healey WC: Learning disabilities and conductive hearing loss involving otitis media. J of Learning Disabilities 1983; 16: 272-278.

9. Hagerman R & Falkenstein A: Ear infections and hyperactivity? Clin Pediatrics 1987 (May); as reported in Parent's Pediatric Report 1987; Nov.; 70.

10. Stray-Gundersen K: Babies with Down's Syndrome. Kensington, MD: Woodbine House. 1986.

11. Osborn J. vonderEmbse D & Graves L. Development of a model program using sound field amplification for prevention of auditory-based learning disabilities. Unpublished study from Putnam County Office of Education, Ottawa, OH, 1989.

12. Sarff LS & Ray HR. Why not amplification in every classroom? Hear J 1981; 10: 43-52.

13. Silverman LK, Chitwood DG & Water JL: Young gifted children: Can parents identify giftedness? Topics in Early Childhood Special Education 1986; 6: 23-37.

14. Bess F & Tharpe A: Unilateral hearing impairment in children. Pediatrics 1984; 7 4 (2): 206.

15. Bagwell C: A report on noise-induced hearing loss in high school students. An unpublished study from Wabash & Ohio Valley Special Education District, Norris, IL, 1983.

16. Finitzo-Heiber T & Tillman T: Room acoustics effects on monosyllabic word discrimination ability for normal and hearing impaired children. J Speech Hear Res 1978; 21: 440-458.

17. Ross M & Giolas T: Effect of three classroom listening conditions on speech intelligibility. Am Annals of Deaf 1971; 116:6.

Karen Anderson, MEd, EdS, is an educational audiologist. Correspondence can be addressed to HR or Karen Anderson, Med, 15610 121st Ave. Ct. E. Puyallup, WA 98374. A version of this fact sheet was originally presented at the 1995 American Academy of Audiology Convention, Dallas, TX.