The traffic noise that accompanies us in cities is an invisible enemy for health that must be fought. In addition to increasing stress and increasing the risk of hearing problems in the population, it could also affect the little ones in a very particular way, according to a study carried out in 38 schools in Barcelona by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), which has been shown to interfere with cognitive development in childhood.
Specifically, it was found that children who studied in schools that were located in environments with more traffic noise pollution had slower cognitive development than those who lived in quieter environments. These results were obtained taking into account two key skills for learning and school performance: working memory and attention span.
Working memory allows us to retain information and use it in a short period of time, while attention span is the ability to focus on specific stimuli or concentrate on a task for a limited amount of time. Finally, complex working memory occurs when information stored in working memory needs to be processed continuously and efficiently.
5 decibel spike in traffic noise made working memory development 11.4% slower than average
These characteristics were measured in 2,680 boys and girls between 7 and 10 years of age from 38 schools in Barcelona for 12 months, between 2021 and 2013. It was found that both working memory and attention span had been reduced as a consequence of the noise coming from of the cars. The publication has been published in the journal PLoS Medicine.
For example, a 5 decibel (dB) increase in traffic noise levels caused working memory development to be 11.4% slower than average and complex working memory development to be 23% slower than average. .5% slower. Similarly, 5 dB more traffic noise in schools caused attention span development to be 4.8% slower than average.
Noise in houses does not affect cognitive development
However, fluctuations in classroom noise levels were found to be associated with slower progress on all cognitive tests throughout the school year. Children who were exposed to higher average noise levels in classrooms over the year performed worse than students in quieter classrooms only on the attention test, but not on the working memory tests.
“This finding suggests that noise spikes within the classroom may be more detrimental to neurodevelopment than the average decibel level. This is important because it supports the hypothesis that noise characteristics may be more influential than average noise levels, even though current policies are based solely on average decibels,” says Maria Foraster, lead author of the research.
“Noise spikes within the classroom can be more detrimental to neurological development than the average decibel level”
The authors wanted to go a step further and find out how noise affected children in homes as well. To find out, they used a traffic noise map of the city of Barcelona to find out the level of noise pollution in the areas where each participant lived. The results showed that there was no association between residential noise and cognitive development.
Maria Foraster believes that “this could be due to the fact that exposure to noise at school is more harmful since it affects vulnerable windows of concentration and learning processes. On the other hand, although noise measurements were taken in schools, noise levels in the children’s homes were estimated using a noise map that may be less accurate and, in any case, only reflected outside noise. This may also have influenced the results.
Therefore, the authors emphasize the importance of caring for the health of children during their childhood, a vulnerable period as it can directly affect cognitive development that takes place before adolescence.
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