The present paper provides an overview of research concerning both acute and chronic effects of exposure to noise on children´s cognitive performance. Experimental studies addressing the impact of acute exposure showed negative effects on speech perception and listening comprehension. These effects are more pronounced in children as compared to adults. Children with language or attention disorders and second-language learners are still more impaired than age-matched controls. Noise-induced disruption was also found for non-auditory tasks, i.e., serial recall of visually presented lists and reading. The impact of chronic exposure to noise was examined in quasi-experimental studies. Indoor noise and reverberation in classroom settings were found to be associated with poorer performance of the children in verbal tasks. Regarding chronic exposure to aircraft noise, studies consistently found that high exposure is associated with lower reading performance. Even though the reported effects are usually small in magnitude, and confounding variables were not always sufficiently controlled, policy makers responsible for noise abatement should be aware of the potential impact of environmental noise on children´s development.

The effects of classroom noise and background speech on speech perception, measured by word-to-picture matching, and listening comprehension, measured by execution of oral instructions, were assessed in first- and third-grade children and adults in a classroom-like setting. For speech perception, in addition to noise, reverberation time (RT) was varied by conducting the experiment in two virtual classrooms with mean RT = 0.47 versus RT = 1.1 s. Children were more impaired than adults by background sounds in both speech perception and listening comprehension. Classroom noise evoked a reliable disruption in children΄s speech perception even under conditions of short reverberation. RT had no effect on speech perception in silence, but evoked a severe increase in the impairments due to background sounds in all age groups. For listening comprehension, impairments due to background sounds were found in the children, stronger for first- than for third-graders, whereas adults were unaffected. Compared to classroom noise, background speech had a smaller effect on speech perception, but a stronger effect on listening comprehension, remaining significant when speech perception was controlled. This indicates that background speech affects higher-order cognitive processes involved in children΄s comprehension. Children΄s ratings of the sound-induced disturbance were low overall and uncorrelated to the actual disruption, indicating that the children did not consciously realize the detrimental effects. The present results confirm earlier findings on the substantial impact of noise and reverberation on children΄s speech perception, and extend these to classroom-like environmental settings and listening demands closely resembling those faced by children at school.

Children are more impaired than adults by unfavorable listening conditions such as reverberation and noise. Nevertheless, the acoustical conditions in classrooms often do not fit the specific needs of young listeners. This field study aimed to analyze the effects of classroom reverberation on children's performance and well-being at school. Performance and questionnaire data were collected from 487 children from 21 classrooms which differed in mean reverberation time from 0.49 to 1.1 seconds. Significant effects of reverberation on speech perception and short-term memory of spoken items were found. Furthermore, the children from reverberating classrooms performed lower in a phonological processing task, reported a higher burden of indoor noise in the classrooms, and judged the relationships to their peers and teachers less positively than children from classrooms with good acoustics. The results demonstrate the importance of good acoustical conditions in classrooms.

A review of the literature shows that our knowledge concerning effects of chronic aircraft noise exposure on children is still limited and does not allow well-founded predictions for children living in specific noise-exposed areas. In this study, we investigated effects of aircraft noise on cognition and quality of life in 1,243 second graders from 29 schools around Frankfurt/Main Airport in Germany. Although exposure levels at schools were below 60 dB and thus considerably lower than in previous studies, multilevel analyses revealed that increasing exposure was linearly associated with less positive ratings of quality of life, increasing noise annoyance, and decreasing reading performance. A 20 dB increase in aircraft noise exposure was associated with a decrease in reading scores of one fifth of a standard deviation, corresponding to a reading delay of about 2 months. No effects were found for verbal precursors of reading acquisition. Teachers’ reports (N = 84) indicate that severe disruptions of classroom instruction due to aircraft noise may contribute to the effect on reading.

With two experiments, effects of irrelevant speech and classroom noise on serial recall of common nouns presented pictorially were investigated in children and adults. Experiment 1 used fixed list lengths for children (first graders) and adults. Experiment 2 used list lengths adjusted to participants' (second–third graders, adults) individual spans. In both experiments, children and adults were equally impaired by irrelevant speech. This contrasts with a related study (differences in methodology) by Elliott (2002), who reported severe increase in the detrimental impact of irrelevant speech with decreasing age. In both experiments, classroom noise had no effect in overall analyses. For Experiment 1, however, separate group analyses revealed impairment in children. Results suggest that effects of irrelevant sounds on serial recall stem from two separate mechanisms: Specific interference due to the sounds' automatic access to short-term memory, and/or attention capture. Only for the latter there is developmental change.

Background The exposome approach can be a powerful tool for understanding the intertwining of social, physical, and internal influences that shape mental health and cognitive development throughout childhood. To distil conceptual models for subsequent analyses, the EU-funded project Early Environmental quality and Life-course mental health effects (Equal-Life) has conducted literature reviews on potential mediators linking the exposome to these outcomes. We report on a scoping review and a conceptual model of the role of restorative possibilities and physical activity. Methods Peer-reviewed studies published since the year 2000 in English, on the association between the exposome and mental health/cognition in children/adolescents, and quantitatively investigating restoration/restorative quality as a mediating variable were considered. Database searches were last updated in December 2022. We used an unstructured expert-driven approach to fill in gaps in the reviewed literature. Results Five records of three distinct studies were identified, indicating a scarcity of empirical evidence in this newly developing research area. Not only were these studies few in numbers, but also cross-sectional, lending only tentative support to the idea that perceived restorative quality of adolescent's living environment might mediate the association between greenspace and mental health. Physical activity emerged as a mediator leading to better psychological outcomes in restorative environments. We provide a critical discussion of potential caveats when investigating the restoration mechanism in children and propose a hierarchical model including restoration, physical activity, and relational dynamics between children and their environment, including social context, as well as restorative environments other than nature. Conclusions It is justified to further explore the role of restoration and physical activity as mediators in the association between early-life exposome and mental health/cognitive development. It is important to consider the child perspective and specific methodological caveats. Given the evolving conceptual definitions/operationalizations, Equal-Life will attempt to fill in a critical gap in the literature.