The others are too loud! Children’s experiences and thoughts related to voice, noise, and communication in Nordic preschools

The purpose is to investigate how children in Finland, Sweden and Iceland describe the kindergarten environment in relation to noise, use of the voice and verbal communication, focusing on the children’s own experiences, knowledge and ideas. Other areas of interest for the study are children’s own awareness of the consequences of noise and possible reactions to noise, potential differences between countries, and potential differences based on gender.

The results show that children were aware of high levels of noise and blamed themselves or other children for most of the noise. The majority of the children stated that the noise was caused by other children’s play and shouting.

The most common theme found in the children’s statements was related to the children’s experience of noise, difficulty hearing others and being heard by others, as well as physical and emotional reactions. The physical reactions that most children spoke of were that they experienced earache and they had sore throats in connection with noise and having to raise their voice.

In general, the children describe reactions and strategies related to noise. They were aware that noise hinders communication and has an impact on hearing, but are less aware of the effect noise has on their voice. The studies show that the children’s experiences are similar in all three countries. The environment and challenges related to communication and noise are similarly described across genders.

The methodology involves interviews with children aged 5-6 years old, both one-to-one and in focus groups. A total of 8 kindergartens chose to participate in the study, 3 from Finland, 2 from Sweden and 2 from Iceland. All the kindergartens from Finland and Sweden were run by the public sector. In Iceland, 1 was run by the public sector and 1 was run privately. All the kindergartens were located in urban areas.

30 of the children were interviewed in focus groups of 4-6 children, 14 children in Finland and 16 children in Sweden. In addition, interviews were conducted with individual children. A total of 48 children were interviewed for this study.

McAllister, A., Rantala, L. & Jónsdóttir, V. I. (2019). "The others are too loud! Children’s experiences and thoughts related to voice, noise, and communication in Nordic preschools". Frontiers in Psychology, 10:e1954.