Did classroom-like noise impair children’s academic performance?

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Classrooms are noisy even during solo work: children can hear background babble, outdoor noise and people moving around. Few studies of noise effects on academic tasks have used naturalistic stimuli, and questions remain about why some children are more impaired by noise than others.

The study compared primary school children’s performance on text recall, reading comprehension and mathematics in silence and while hearing either irrelevant verbal noise (storytelling, n = 33) or mixed noise (outdoor noise, movement and babble, n = 31).

Noise did not impair overall performance. The authors suggest that children might use compensatory strategies, such as re-reading, to reach the same level of performance in silence and noise. Individual differences in selective attention and working memory were not related to the impact of noise, with one exception: children with lower working memory were more impaired by noise when doing mathematics. Replication with a larger sample is needed.