Abstract
BackgroundDue to shortcomings in the design, no source-specific exposure-effect relations are as yet available describing the effects of noise on children's cognitive performance. This paper reports on a study investigating the effects of aircraft and road traffic noise exposure on the cognitive performance of primary schoolchildren in both the home and the school setting.MethodsParticipants were 553 children (age 9-11 years) attending 24 primary schools around Schiphol Amsterdam Airport. Cognitive performance was measured by the Neurobehavioral Evaluation System (NES), and a set of paper-and-pencil tests. Multilevel regression analyses were applied to estimate the association between noise exposure and cognitive performance, accounting for demographic and school related confounders.ResultsEffects of school noise exposure were observed in the more difficult parts of the Switching Attention Test (SAT): children attending schools with higher road or aircraft noise levels made significantly more errors. The correlational pattern and factor structure of the data indicate that the coherence between the neurobehavioral tests and paper-and-pencil tests is high.ConclusionsBased on this study and previous scientific literature it can be concluded that performance on simple tasks is less susceptible to the effects of noise than performance on more complex tasks.
Highlights
Due to shortcomings in the design, no source-specific exposure-effect relations are as yet available describing the effects of noise on children's cognitive performance
From this study and previous scientific literature [46] it can be concluded that performance on simple tasks is less susceptible to the effects of noise than performance on more complex tasks, requesting increased mental performance
From our results it can be concluded that the tests of the Neurobehavioral Evaluation System (NES) can complement the paper-and-pencil tests when investigating the effects of noise on children's cognitive functioning: in addition to the paperand-pencil tests, the tests of the NES measure some different aspects of attention: Response speed and the ability to switch between responses
Summary
Due to shortcomings in the design, no source-specific exposure-effect relations are as yet available describing the effects of noise on children's cognitive performance. This paper reports on a study investigating the effects of aircraft and road traffic noise exposure on the cognitive performance of primary schoolchildren in both the home and the school setting. Transportation is an activity that is responsible for a large and growing proportion of environment and health effects in Europe. Despite numerous measures in the field of noise abatement at European, national and local levels, the noise-level has not decreased. Since noise is one of the environmental stressors purported to have adverse effects on human health and well-being [3], the noise-related disease burden is expected to rise [4]
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