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Volume : 44

Part : 2

Proceedings of the Institute of Acoustics

 

 

Speech perception and deaf and hard of hearing children in the classroom: A multidisciplinary effort in the United States to bring data and standards to architects, school districts, and into building codes

 

Frank Iglehart, Educational Audiology Association, Classroom Acoustics Coalition, Leverett, Massachusetts, USA

 

1. TITLE

 

Speech perception and deaf and hard of hearing children in the classroom: A multidisciplinary effort in the United States to bring data and standards to architects, school districts, and into building codes

 

2. ABSTRACT

 

This presentation will discuss efforts by a multidisciplinary team to overcome the notable lack of progress in the United States in acoustic accommodations for deaf and hard of hearing children in the classroom. Data collected through research efforts by members of this team, and by others, demonstrate the benefits of appropriate acoustics for all children and especially those deaf and hard of hearing. These efforts have resulted in a voluntary standard in classroom acoustics specifically for deaf and hard of hearing children by the American National Standards Institute. This standard, however, is not reaching built classrooms. This coalition of people from the fields of acoustics, architecture and audiology is using speech perception data and new computer simulations to increase awareness of the need for classroom acoustic standards in building codes to accommodate deaf and hard of hearing children.

 

3. REPORT

 

This report is on progress by a coalition of people across several professions whose purpose is to promote acoustic accommodations to children with hearing impairment more consistently than currently available in schools across the United States (US). This coalition currently consists of three architects, four audiologists, a former member of the US Access Board, the federal agency responsible for enforcing disability law in the US, and an acoustic engineer. Classroom acoustics, even those considered sufficient for children with typical (normal) hearing, are known to cause significant difficulties for children with hearing impairment in the perception of speech, and therefore in learning and academic progress. Fortunately, the remedies are relatively easily and inexpensively available. Research findings substantiate well the benefit of good acoustics. The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) include in standards ANSI/ASA S12.60-2010/Part 11a classroom acoustics standard of 0.6 s reverberation time (RT) for classrooms (≤ 10,000 ft3). This standard seems widely followed in the design of classrooms.

 

The ANSI/ASA S12.60-2010/Part 1 also includes an acoustics standard of 0.3 s RT for classrooms with children with hearing impairment, after research findings clearly demonstrated the benefit.2,,3,4,8 Research findings also demonstrate benefit of this RT to children with typical hearing.7,9,10 This standard of 0.3 s RT, however, appears far-less well known than its related standard, 0.6 s RT. The challenge is how to make this acoustic improvement of 0.3 s RT more widely known and available in the design of classrooms for the benefit of children with hearing impairment.

 

Presently, parents of eligible children must request accommodations through an Individualized Education Program (IEP) under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), or under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. While these federal laws are of real benefit, these avenues, from the perspective of this coalition, have significant practical limitations:

  1. The parent must request an eligibility assessment. If eligibility is determined, a team develops an IEP for the child which includes accommodations that allow the child to benefit from his/her educational program. If the child is not eligible for an IEP for special education, the parent may request a meeting for accommodations through a 504 Plan that is created to ensure the child has access to instruction and can communicate in the classroom with teachers and peers as effectively as children without hearing impairment.

  2. Leadership and collaboration at the state and school district level can vary greatly in their willingness to accept acoustic accommodations for a specific student. Some districts are compliant in providing reasonable accommodations, while others may resist including acoustic accommodations into the child’s IEP or 504 Plan.

  3. A parent may then need to file a complaint with the school district or state department of education or a lawsuit through federal offices such as Office of Civil Rights within the US Department of Education for their child to receive this accommodation. This can take months or even years.

  4. The IEP or 504 Plan, once written and accepted by all parties, is still limited only to that one child. The process has to be repeated for each child.

  5. The overall result is that this burden of requesting and pursuing accommodations is placed on each parent for each child. Successful accommodations depend heavily on each parent’s resources to manage this challenging process, and many children thus fall through the cracks.

 

We began to research what guides the design of built classrooms. Since authorizing authority throughout the US over school design and building codes occurs at the state or local levels, we have attempted to identify those authorities, state by state. The Educational Audiology Association (EAA), which has local representatives in each state, generously agreed to help. These EAA representatives, however, were successful in identifying these authorities in only a handful of states. In other words, while there are many identifiable, visible organizations advocating for classroom acoustic accommodation, it appears that few states have a code authority that is readily identifiable to the non-building specialist. The time required to locate a state’s code authority is well beyond that available to these educational audiologists, and thus appears beyond that of other advocates for accommodation of children with hearing impairment.

 

At the same time, inquiries made of architects who design schools across several states indicated that they knew of no building codes to specify what acoustic accommodations would be needed in school by a child with hearing impairment. The ANSI/ASA standard of 0.3 s RT, published in 2010, still appears relatively unknown to professionals who design schools. In other words, building codes appear to have not adopted any standard, much less the standard of 0.3 s RT, that address children with hearing impairment in the classroom.

 

It has become apparent that we need a new approach in addition to existing federal law or state/local building code authorities. Our coalition originally had one architect (and now three). He reported that he and other architects design schools with plans that adhered to standards published by the International Code Council (ICC), especially in regard to accommodation of disabilities. We learned that the ICC publishes a family of construction codes and standards, including the International Building Code5(IBC). The IBC contains model code with scoping requirements for buildings and facilities. Chapter 12 of the IBC requires all classrooms in K-12 schools to comply with ICC A117.1.

 

These architects reported that they looked to the IBC for guidance on classroom acoustics, and IBC Chapter 12 refers to ICC A117.1-2017, Section 808 for standards on classroom acoustics6.

 

The ICC A117.1-2017, Section 808 has adopted 0.6 s RT as a standard. The ICC Section 808, however, has not yet adopted the standard of 0.3 s RT for children with hearing impairment. Thus, to this coalition, ICC Section 808 seems a possible avenue for inclusion of children with hearing impairment.

 

From conversations with several people familiar with the code-development process, we believe the main reason for lack of adoption to date of a standard of 0.3 s RT for these children is the inherent difficulty of putting such a standard into building code. The RT of 0.6 s has been adopted possibly because it is a static requirement that applies to all classrooms – each classroom meets the requirement of 0.6 s RT from the time of completion of construction and subsequent code inspection. The need for 0.3 s RT, however, applies only to a classroom at the later time when a child with hearing loss uses that room, which occurs outside the timeframe and purview of code compliance.

 

It appears that this coalition needs to address the process of accommodation not through the language of a practitioner in the field of disabilities but that of a code official. We are learning that building codes address the design and construction of all types of buildings and facilities, including schools. Prior to giving permission to a use a facility for the first time, building officials working for state and local governments will enforce the code through plans review and physical inspection. Building codes establish acceptable minimum requirements to ensure the general health, safety, and welfare of occupants of the built environment. They do not address occupants’ individual needs, such as in regard to disabilities; nor do they prescribe how programs that take place in the building or facility are operated so as to accommodate individual differences among the program participants. In other words, classroom building codes do not address the needs of a child(ren). The codes address the needs of the design/building professional – the architect by providing clear guidance on design, and the code inspector by describing specifically what to look for during inspection.

 

Our coalition has expanded to include several people well-experienced in developing building code with the ICC. That collaboration and its proposals to the ICC continue at the time of this paper’s submission. Further progress with the ICC is anticipated, and we look forward to reporting on that progress during Inter.Noise-2022 in Glasgow.

 

4. REFERENCES

 

  1. American National Standards Institute/Acoustical Society of America. (2010). Acoustical performance criteria, design requirements, and guidelines for schools (ANSI/ASA S12.60-2010). Melville, NY: Acoustical Society of America.

  2. Finitzo-Heiber, T., & Tillman, T. W. Room acoustics effects on monosyllabic word discrimination ability for normal and hearing-impaired children. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 21, 440–458 (1978).

  3. Iglehart, F. Speech perception in classroom acoustics by children with cochlear implants and with typical hearing. American Journal of Audiology, 25(2), 100–109 (2016).

  4. 4. Iglehart, F. Speech perception in classroom acoustics by children with hearing loss and wearing hearing aids. American Journal of Audiology, 29, 6-17 (2020).

  5. 5. International Building Code. (2021). Retrieved from https://codes.iccsafe.org/content/IBC2021P2

  6. International Code Council A117.1 – 2017. Accessible and Usable Buildings and Facilities. Retrieved from https://codes.iccsafe.org/content/icca117-12017

  7. Neuman, A. C., Wróblewski, M., Hajicek, J., & Rubinstein, A. Combined effects of noise and reverberation on speech recognition performance of normal-hearing children and adults. Ear and Hearing, 31, 336–344 (2010).

  8. Neuman, A. C., Wróblewski, M., Hajicek, J. & Rubinstein, A. Measuring speech recognition in children with cochlear implants in a virtual classroom. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 55, 532-540 (2012).

  9. Wróblewski, M., Lewis, D. E., Valente, D. L., & Stelmachowicz, P. G. Effects of reverberation on speech recognition in stationary and modulated noise by school-aged children and young adults. Ear and Hearing, 33, 731–744 (2012).

  10. Yacullo, W. S., & Hawkins, D. B. Speech recognition in noise and reverberation by school-age children. Audiology, 26, 235–246 (1987).