Acoustic analysis of auditory environment in nursery room.

听觉环境对婴儿期儿童的健康成长起着重要的作用，这一点在欧洲和其他国家已经被认识到很长一段时间了。然而，日本现行的日托中心和幼儿园的托儿室标准只规定了每个儿童的面积标准和听觉标准，只有外部交通噪声水平等声音才能指示。本研究旨在通过调查儿童和托儿所和幼儿园教师在托儿所内的活动并对教师进行听力测试，制定适当的托儿室听觉环境评价标准，以澄清日本托儿所具有适合支持儿童及其照顾者活动的听觉环境。例如，用听力计和OAE筛选器测量教师的听力阈值的结果表明，儿童保育后立即可以明显看到听力损失的增加，这表明噪声对听力的影响。在具有吸声过程的托儿室工作后，没有看到听力下降的趋势。以上结果表明，测量托儿室内的听觉环境可以作为了解儿童和教师暴露在噪声中的线索，教师可以使用听力测试作为评估托儿室内听觉环境的一种方法。

It has been recognized in Europe and the other countries for quite some time now that the auditory environment plays an important role in the healthy growth of children during infancy. However current Japanese standards for nursery rooms in day-care centers and kindergartens indicate area standards per child and for auditory standards, only sounds such as the level of external traffic noise are indicated.This study aims to develop proper evaluation standards for the auditory environment of nursery rooms by investigating the activities of children with their nursery and kindergarten teachers inside nursery rooms as well as conducting audiometric tests of the teachers in order to clarify that nursery rooms in Japan have an auditory environment suitable to support the activities of children and their care takers.The results are as follows. As one of the examples, the results of the audiometric threshold value of the teachers measured using audiometers and OAE screener showed that an increase in auditory loss was clearly seen right after childcare, indicating the impacts of “noises" on audibility. After working in nursery rooms where the sound absorption process was in place, no tendency for a decrease in audibility was seen. The results above revealed that measuring the auditory environment inside nursery rooms where children spend long periods of time everyday can be a clue to understanding the amountof noise that children and teachers are exposed to and audiometric testing for teachers can be used as amethod to evaluate the auditory environment inside nursery rooms.