Hearing, Acoustic Environment of Schools and Its Effects on Children 's Hearing and Learning in Two Selected Schools in Addis Ababa

Abstract

The mai'l purpose of lhis study was 10 im'esligate Ihe effecl of acolls!ic environmenl 01/
children 's hcaring and learning. rhe ~'/lIdy was conducted al EnlOlO Amba a/l(l Belay
Zeleke schools, located in Guide sub-ciry, Addis Ababa. 71Ie parlicipallfS of lhis s1lltly
comprised of 200 children. 100 from each oflhe Iwo sampled school.~, {lml tell leachers
leaching in Ihe same schools. Hearing level and school acoustic cQnriitiOI1.\· wen.'
analyzed rIsing descriptive s f(llislics as well as qualitatively. Results of this slIIdy
revealed lIlat many of the sampled children in Ihis slIIdy suffered from Ilnifaleraland
bilateral borderline hearing losses. In both schools, an average of 56% of Ihe tested
children had Imilateral hearing borderline loss and 54% had bilateral borderline
hearing loss. Both schOOl.f had a significant "umber of children (J 3.5%) who had
bi/aleral hard of hearing. This research found thar background noise of fhe schools
was extremely disnlptive for children's hearing artd learning in !he classrooms, The
acollstic environment afthe school measured by Sound Level Meier was in the range of
74.3 10 79.8dB in rhe classrooms with classes going on, and 63.1 10 67.5d8 in the
empty classrooms at Entoto Ambo and Belay Zeleke, respectively. The highest levels of
noise in the schools (md classrooms ha ve conlributed milch fO the poor fUll ctiollal
hearing loss of the childre" in this stlldy tllat adversely afJec!s commllnicalio" and
learnil/g. Hence, the schools "eed /0 be rehabilitated in order fa reduce the high level
of noise so /hal the coming generation will have sound treated environment for !heir
desirable developme