Noise exposure may interfere with concentration, learning, and executive functions. In children, in particular, the non-auditory consequences of acoustically inadequate conditions are a serious concern. This systematic review examined the evidence from 26 studies investigating the effects of noise on primary school children’s cognitive and academic performance. The reviewed studies show that speech noise significantly impairs children’s verbal working memory. Meanwhile, non-speech environmental noise appears to notably affect academic performance, particularly in reading. Other types of non-speech noise may, instead, even improve the cognitive performance of children, although only for children with low attentional skills. However, only a few studies have compared the impacts of speech and non-speech noise or explored noise effects across various cognitive tasks. And finally, there’s a shortage of both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies assessing developmental effects. Overall, this scarcity limits the ability to draw robust conclusions about noise effects on children’s cognitive and academic abilities.

The acoustic quality of classrooms is crucial for children’s listening skills and consequently for their learning. Listening abilities in kids are still developing, and an environment with inadequate acoustic characteristics may create additional problems in speech perception and phonetic recognition. Background noise or reverberation may cause auditory processing problems and greater cognitive effort. There are also other elements which can make difficulty in listening and understanding in noisy environments an even more serious problem, such as learning disabilities, mild to severe hearing loss or bilingualism. Therefore, it is important to improve the acoustic quality of the classrooms, taking into account the specific needs of children in terms of signal-to-noise ratio and reverberation time, in order to ensure a proper quality of listening. The aim of this work is to analyse, through the review of previous studies, the impact that the acoustic of classrooms has on children’s listening skills and learning activities.

Epidemiological studies show increasing prevalence rates of cognitive decline and hearing loss with age, particularly after the age of 65 years. These conditions are reported to be associated, although conclusive evidence of causality and implications is lacking. Nevertheless, audiological and cognitive assessment among elderly people is a key target for comprehensive and multidisciplinary evaluation of the subject’s frailty status. To evaluate the use of tools for identifying older adults at risk of hearing loss and cognitive decline and to compare skills and abilities in terms of hearing and cognitive performances between older adults and young subjects, we performed a prospective cross-sectional study using supraliminal auditory tests. The relationship between cognitive assessment results and audiometric results was investigated, and reference ranges for different ages or stages of disease were determined. Patients older than 65 years with different degrees of hearing function were enrolled. Each subject underwent an extensive audiological assessment, including tonal and speech audiometry, Italian Matrix Sentence Test, and speech audiometry with logatomes in quiet. Cognitive function was screened and then verified by experienced clinicians using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment Score, the Geriatric Depression Scale, and further investigations in some. One hundred twenty-three subjects were finally enrolled during 2016–2019: 103 were >65 years of age and 20 were younger participants (as controls). Cognitive functions showed a correlation with the audiological results in post-lingual hearing-impaired patients, in particular in those affected by slight to moderate hearing loss and aged more than 70 years. Audiological testing can thus be useful in clinical assessment and identification of patients at risk of cognitive impairment. The study was limited by its sample size (CI 95%; CL 10%), strict dependence on language, and hearing threshold. Further investigations should be conducted to confirm the reported results and to verify similar screening models.