If you're in the process of constructing a daycare centre or renovating an existing building to be used for childcare, it's crucial that you hire an acoustical consultant. Sound levels are important in all buildings, but at a daycare, acoustics can be the difference between a successful business and a failed venture. Here are 3 reasons why you should use the expertise of a consultant to ensure your centre is acoustically sound.
Poor Acoustics Impede Speech Development
Whether you'll be running an early learning centre with a set curriculum or a facility that focuses entirely on free play, your daycare will be a crucial step in the linguistic journeys of the children you look after. The hours that toddlers and preschoolers spend at your daycare represent valuable learning time, so they need to be able to hear speech from their caretakers and peers intelligibly. However, it can be hard for their developing auditory systems to take in language accurately if the acoustics in the room are poor. Background noise and reverberation time can both interfere with the ability to understand and develop speech. To make matters worse, when children can't hear well, they tend to talk louder. This creates more and more noise, drastically reducing their ability to learn. An acoustical consultant will be able to design a sound solution to eliminate troublesome background noise and reverberation time.
Poor Acoustics Disrupt Nap Time
Another problem poor acoustics cause in daycare centres is naptime disruption. If you'll be looking after toddlers, a daily nap will be an important part of their routine. Setting children down to sleep can be a struggle at the best of times, but when the acoustics in your daycare aren't optimised, you'll have even more of a struggle. Poor acoustics can amplify every sound in the room, leading to something as innocuous as a staff member's footsteps waking everyone. Acoustical consultants know how to use a variety of panels, drapes, and other building design techniques to ensure that your nap room stays quiet and your children stay sleeping.
Poor Acoustics Make Staff Unhappy
Background noise and reverberation don't just make life unpleasant for the children in your care—they also make things difficult for your staff. Finding and retaining good childcare staff is one of the biggest difficulties many daycare managers face, so you'll want to do everything in your power to make sure your employees are happy to come to work every day and do their jobs well. When poor acoustics amplify the noise in your facility, staff can quickly become fatigued and irritable. This can lead to a variety of problems, including staff getting angry and shouting at the children or even staff quitting their jobs due to sensory stress. The work an acoustical consultant does will ensure that your facility is gentle on your employees' hearing as well as your children's.