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of Education estimates that about $20 billion dollars are soon to be invested in school construction around the country. Planners in Minneapolis are taking a look at the standard as they design new schools. Architects who designed the Burroughs School in Minneapolis received accolades for their attention to acoustical detail (The Wall Street Journal, 2003.) More and more, acoustical design seems to be a part of the planning process. The Acoustical Society can be proud of its efforts to make that happen, and proud of the contin- ued efforts to see that the standard is recognized and used for new school construction.AT
References
American National Standards Institute (2002) Standard 12.60-2002: Acoustical Performance Criteria, Design Requirements, and Guidelines for Schools. American National Standards Institute, 1819 L Street NW, Suite 600, Washington, D.C.
Crandell, C., and Smaldino, J. (1996). Speech perception in noise by children for whom English is a second language. American Journal of Audiology 5, 47–51.
Giedd, J.N. (2004). Structural magnetic resonance imaging of the adolescent brain. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1021, 77–85.
Knecht, H., Nelson, P., Whitelaw, G., and Feth, L. (2002). Structural vari- ables and their relationship to background noise levels and reverber- ation times in unoccupied classrooms. American Journal of Audiology 11, 65–71.
Kuhl, P. (1991). Human adults and human infants show a “perceptu- al magnet effect” for the prototypes of speech categories, monkeys do not. Perception and Psychophysics 50, 93–107.
Litovsky, R.Y. (1997). Developmental changes in the precedence effect: Estimates of minimal audible angle. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 102, 1739–1745.
Mayo, L., Florentine, M., and Buus, S. (1997). Age of second-language acquisition and perception of speech in noise. Journal of Speech Language Hearing Research 40, 686–693.
Nabelek, A. and Nabelek, I. (1985). Noise and reverberation in rooms, in Katz, ed., “Handbook of Audiology,” 2nd edition, Williams & Wilkins, New York.
Nelson, P., Kohnert, K., Shaw, D., and Sabur, S. (2005). Classroom noise and children learning through a second language: Double jeopardy? Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 36, 219-229.
Nelson, P., Soli, S., and Seltz, A. (2003). Classroom Acoustics II: Acoustical barriers to learning. A publication of the Speech Communication Technical Committee of the Acoustical Society of America.
Nittrouer, S. (1996). Discriminability and perceptual weighting of some acoustic cues to speech perception by 3-year-olds. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 39 (2), 278–297.
Plomp, R. (1978) Auditory handicap of hearing impairment and the limited benefit of hearing aids. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 63, 533–549.
Smith E., Lemke, J., Taylor, M., Kirchner, H.L., and Hoffman, H. (1998). Frequency of voice problems among teachers and other occupations. Journal of Voice 12, 480–488.
Soli, S.D., and Sullivan, J.A. (1997). Factors affecting children’s speech communication in classrooms. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 101, 3070.
Stelmachowicz, P.G., Hoover, B.M., Lewis, D.E., Kortekaas, R.W., and Pittman, A.L. (2000). The relation between stimulus context, speech audibility, and perception for normal-hearing and hear-
ing-impaired children. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing
Research 43, 902–914.
Studebaker, G., Sherpecoe, R., McDaniel, D. and Gwaltney, C. (1999).
Monosyllabic word recognition at higher-than-normal speech and noise levels. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 106, 2431–2444.
U.S. General Accounting Office, Health, Education, and Human Services Division (1995). “Conditions of America’s Schools,” Document#: GAO/HEHS-95-61, Report # B-259307, February 1.
The Wall Street Journal Marketplace, July 30, 2003, “School districts spend to ensure good acoustics.”
Warrier, C., Johnson, K., Hayes, E., Nicol, T., and Kraus, N. (2004). Learning impaired children exhibit timing deficits and training- related improvements in auditory cortical responses to speech in noise. Experimental Brain Research 154, 431–441.
Werker, J. Gilbert, J., Humphrey, K., and Tees, R. (1981). Developmental aspects of cross-language speech perception. Child Development 52, 349–355.
Werner, L. and Bargones, J. (1991) Sources of auditory masking in infants. Perception and Psychophysics 50(5), 405–412.
Wightman, F., Callahan, M., Lutfi, R., Kistler, D, and Oh, E. (2003). Children’s detection of pure-tone signals: informational masking with contralateral maskers. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 113, 3297–3305.
Links of interest
www.nimh.nih.gov/press/prbrainmaturing.cfm (NIMH: Imaging study shows brain maturing)
www.teachernet.gov.uk/management/resourcesfinanceandbuilding /schoolbuildings/designguidance/sbenvironmentalhs/acoustics(U K classroom acoustics bulletin)
www.quietclassrooms.org/ada/ada.htm
(check here for Listening for Learning tips from the U.S. Access Board)
Peggy B. Nelson is an
Associate Professor of Audiology
in the Department of Speech-
Language-Hearing Disorders at
the University of Minnesota. She
was a member of the ASA work-
ing group on classroom
acoustics, and has worked for the
adoption of the ANSI standard as
a guide for new construction in
Minnesota schools. She teaches
and does research in the areas of
speech perception in noise for listeners with hearing loss.
32 Acoustics Today, October 2005