How can I protect my child's hearing?

Tips on how to protect your child's hearing

• Always listen to toys yourself before buying them. Remember that children will probably hold the toy close to his/her ears regardless of the ‘correct’ use of the toy.
• Remember to protect children’s hearing (as well as your own) from household noise such as power tools and other loud everyday items. Remember, safety around the home is not just about avoiding physical injury.
• If your child has an iPod, download the volume update and set the maximum yourself.
• Get your children to take responsibility for their hearing from an early age. Explain the consequences of loud noise.
• Reduce your child’s exposure to loud noise as much as possible. Don’t let your child play with noisy toys or electronic games for more than one hour a day. Follow the play session with ten minutes of quiet time.
• Encourage the use of earplugs for excessively noisy periods, such as practising with a school band. Special ear plugs are available for musicians.

What can children do to protect their hearing?

More and more young people are listening to music through MP3 players, but at high volumes these can cause hearing loss. Current European Union legislation on the power output of ‘portable audio equipment’ with headphone use means the maximum volume personal music players can reach is 100 dBA – which is above the danger level.

Repeated exposure to music from personal music players, through headphones, at, or near to, maximum volume will be sufficient to cause permanent damage to hearing in some people. As a rule, if other people can hear the sound from a personal music player, then it is too loud.

It is recommended that even if the volume on a personal music player is at about 60 percent of maximum (manufacturer's settings), it shouldn’t be listened to for more than an hour continuously a day.

iPod volume update

Apple have recently announced an update that allows people to set the maximum volume on their iPods. It also comes with a code, so parents can stop their children from undoing it (see note 1).

Tips for the younger generation

• Turn down the volume on your music players, whether personal or hi-fi
• Take ear plugs when you are going to a club or party
• Be aware of how long you spend playing loud video games
• Lower the volume of your mobile phone’s ringtone

Remember - if you start to feel your hearing is getting dulled or you start to hear noises in your head, take a break from what you are doing and give your ears some much needed rest.

Children and toys

Experts agree that toys with a noise level of 85 dBA or above held approximately 25 cm from the ear (about the length of a child’s arm) have the potential to cause damage to hearing if used for extended periods of time or held too close to the ear. These were the findings of the largest study on noise from toys commissioned by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) in 1997 (see note 2).

As young children are totally unaware of safety issues, these toys can be harmful in their hands.

McMillan PM and Kileny PR (1994) referred to the case of a 39-month-old child with previously normal hearing who was shown to have a 50 dB hearing loss six days after suffering ‘acoustic trauma’ (an immediate loss of hearing after a sudden exceptionally loud noise) from a bicycle horn that had been brought as a toy. The horn produced a peak sound of 143 dBA (see note 3).

The DTI study (see note 2) found that toys measured from 25 cm away emitted the following noise levels:

However, damage to hearing is not caused by sound levels alone. To prevent damage it is important to take into account both the loudness of the sounds and the amount of time the child is exposed to them. Although short blasts of sound at very high levels can cause damage straight away, most damage will be caused by extended exposure at less extreme levels.

Notes

1. docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303414
2. Lower M C, Lawton B W, Lutman M E, Davis R A, Noise from toys and its effect on hearing, Report C/CSU/4754,
   Department of Trade and Industry, London, 1997. (These are different from the British and European Standard for toys (BS EN71-1:
   2005) which measure noise levels at 50 cm from the ear.)
3. McMillan and Kileny, Journal of the American Academy of Audiology, Jan 1994 Vol 5 Issue 1, pp 7-9