The Child Study

The NORAH Child Study examined chronic effects of aviation noise on primary school children. One focus concerned the effects on the intellectual development of children. At the centre of this was learning to read as well as certain linguistic skills which are important for learning to read. The scientists also investigated how well the children felt at school and at home, and to what extent the aviation noise affected this.

Scientific procedure in the Child Study

In order to find out more about the link between learning to read and the influence of aviation noise, the scientists had 1,243 schoolchildren from second grade at 29 primary schools carry out a series of tests.

The children's feeling of wellbeing was examined by the scientists in many surveys in which they asked not only the children themselves, but also distributed questionnaires to their parent and teachers.

Then they linked the results of the tests and questionnaires with the traffic noise exposure of the children at home and at school. The data for these calculations was supplied by the acoustics experts of the NORAH team.

Read more: NORAH Knowledge No. 1 and No. 4