Relation between children’s calmness and sound environment in nursery field: Influence of environmental settings and childcare practice

Abstract

In Japanese childcare facilities, there has conventionally been a serious problem regarding too noisy environment in nursery room. This becomes even more serious in an urban area having high population density, particularly because of lack of childcare space. It is concerning that sound environment in childcare facilities, where children live for approximately 8-11 h, has a great influence on the mental and physical development of children. The relation between children’s calmness, such as a state of relaxation or concentration on activity, and the sound environment is reported herein, with a view to creating a suitable sound environment for children. We explain this relation in terms of environmental factors and childcare practices using the following cases. (1) Experiment conducted by varying the environmental settings— particularly, spatial reverberation and furniture of play corner; (2) observation of the childcare practice attached great importance to create the calm of sound environment. From the re...