Child-Centred Room Acoustic Parameters of Public Preschools in Sweden

Preschool should promote children's well-being and development, but the indoor sound environment is commonly problematic. The aim of our research project Supportive Preschool ACoustic Environment (SPACE) is to identify acoustic quality factors resulting in a supportive sound environment for children. This paper presents the first phase of the project where acoustic conditions were measured in unoccupied preschool rooms and analysed in terms of reverberation time, early decay time, sound strength, speech clarity, unoccupied sound pressure levels, and several room features. The results were compared with current target values, building year, and socioeconomic status of the preschool. A child perspective on room acoustics was, in addition, applied and it was revealed that children may be exposed to a lower sound strength than adults, and that adults may have better speech intelligibility conditions than children. Rooms in newer buildings had a longer reverberation time in the 125 Hz band, lower unoccupied levels, and lower sound strength. These differences could be explained by the trend towards larger rooms and porous acoustic ceilings in newer buildings. We found no significant correlations with the socioeconomic status. Ongoing work will facilitate an analysis of the correlation between the room acoustic parameters, the sound environment and children's perception.