Amidst uncertainty during the Covid 19 pandemic there are many decisions that leaves you as a parent with your hands in your hair and with more questions than answers. One of these questions most certainly are whether or not to send your child back to school. While this piece most definitely does not aim to bring you facts about the risk of viral transmission, we do highlight the challenges that both going back to school with Covid 19 measures and home-schooling / online teaching poses in terms of hearing and access to learning.
An unexpected but real challenge with social distancing and protective measures has been communication, more specifically hearing.
Albert Mehrabian, a pioneer researcher of body language in the 1950’s, found that the total impact of a spoken message is about 7 percent verbal (words only) and 38 percent vocal (including tone of voice, inflection, and other sounds) and 55 percent nonverbal.
This is profound, considering that 55% of the spoken message is conveyed through facial expression, the visual shaping of the mouth and lips (lip reading if you will). Could this directly translate that children can lose up to 55% of what is being said in the classroom from under a mask?
Add the fact that a mask (depending on design) can cut around 10 dB of volume from what is being said – roughly translated to around a quarter of the volume of speech. This implies that even a person with 100% normal hearing might find it difficult to follow a conversation with a person wearing a mask. Imagine having to learn new concepts and having to grasp something that you are still learning while receiving only ¾ of the volume and missing out on 55% due to loss in visual cues and lip reading.
Besides the above mentioned limitation that masks pose, the classroom situation poses even more challenges due to potentially the following reasons:
- Potential Perspex / plastic screens in front of the teacher / children influencing the auditory signal
- Classrooms are generally, acoustically not ideal and removing of carpets and extra items will potentially increase the acoustical reverberation in the classroom.
- Classrooms might be emptier than usual, that might contribute to a quieter learning environment, but on the other hand might increase classroom reverberation and impact less than ideal acoustics even more.
Tips & guidelines for the classroom situation amidst Covid-19
- Attempt to better the classroom acoustics by covering walls with posters, windows with curtains, floors with carpets or any absorbing materials (should this be in line with safety guidelines of Covid-19)
- Ensure that the classroom is as quiet as possible, also eliminate outside noise as much as possible (lawnmowers etc).
- Ensure that the classroom, and more specifically the educator’s face is well lit for optimal visual assistance.
- Ensure that you have everyone’s attention before beginning to speak.
- Rephrase statements in a different way instead of repeating the exact same words.
- Teachers should try to speak slightly slower and attempt to speak as clear as possible.
- As far as possible, attempt to face the classroom and not turn your back to the classroom while speaking.
- Where possible, and if in line with prescribed safety measures, a face shield can be used for better access to visual cues.
- Drink plenty of fluids free of excess caffeine or alcohol to keep your vocal cords hydrated.
- Take voice rest breaks if you have been talking for longer than one hour.
For those children being home-schooled or attending online schooling, there are also certain significant challenges.
- Data connections might be weak or intermittent / cause a delay between sound and visuals – which would influence the quality of the message.
- Sound / speakers might not be a good quality or limited output / distortion.
- Visual cues – limited due to camera quality, poor lighting, bad network connections
- Consider using a captioning application on a smartphone or tablet.
- Check volume, too loud could cause distortion and permanent hearing damage.
- Select a dedicated quiet environment for these purposes
- Make use of proper earbuds or headphones – to exclude environmental sounds and assist with focus on the message. Many ear buds and headphones have noise-cancelling technologies that can make it easier to hear the dialogue in the meeting, without needing to increase the volume, and reduce the background noise of your setting. You may want to experiment with different styles of headphones to identify which style affords you the best listening experience.
- Speak Up. Be sure to talk if you are unable to hear or understand. If you are struggling to hear, there may be others who are struggling as well. You don’t want to miss important assignments, information, or updates during and after the session.
Speaker:
- Check for understanding throughout the conversation.
- When doing a recording, ensure that it is done in a quiet environment and a good quality recording.
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- Drink plenty of fluids free of excess caffeine or alcohol to keep your vocal cords hydrated.
- Take voice rest breaks if you have been talking for longer than one hour.
- Use a microphone if you must speak at a loud volume.
- Avoid vocally abusive behaviours such as yelling, excessive coughing and throat clearing, or inhalation of smoke/irritants.
- Make time for introductions. If you start every session with a few minutes of general conversation, it will ensure that everyone has time to do the necessary adjustments to ensure good access to sessions.
- Use video, because visual cues help people understand conversations.
- Participate on video calls in a room with good lighting, it is best to have lighting in front of you rather than behind you. If all of a room’s lighting (electronic or natural) is projected from behind a person and toward a webcam, it makes their facial features difficult to see, limiting the use of visual cues.
- Keep your mouth unobstructed. Try to keep hands, hair, and clothing away from your mouth/face. Project when speaking so that listeners have the best opportunity to hear and understand.
- Use the mute button when you aren’t speaking. When multiple people are participating in an online meeting, background noise from each participant’s home as well as sounds of typing, eating, and so forth, can be highly disruptive.
- Share you screen if the session is focused on a particular document or resource that you are presenting. This will allow that all attendees to view the document or resource in real time. Use your computer mouse to help highlight key areas or information you are discussing, or use the mouse as a digital pointer, calling attention to the section you are discussing.
- Record Your Session, so that it can be made available afterwards for viewing. Some attendees may experience network connection issues or have their calls dropped, it is useful to be able to share the recording with attendees for those people who missed a segment of the discussion or presentation.
Irrespective of your choice whether to send your child back to school on continue with distance learning / home schooling, his/ her access to the message is imperative.
An essential in both scenario’s is good hearing and now more than ever it is essential to ensure that your child is hearing all the sounds that he / she should be hearing. Read more on hearing, hearing loss and auditory processing difficulties in children here.
Just to be sure, contact us for a hearing evaluation today!
Wierdapark – 012 653 3830
Saxby Medicross – 087 944 1803
Benoni – Northmead – 011 425 0171
