Children in schools with higher traffic noise show slower gains in thinking skills, according to a study led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health. The research appears in PLoS Medicine and involved a large group of students from 38 Barcelona schools. The study examined how external noise, particularly from traffic, relates to key cognitive functions during the primary school years.
The main finding is that traffic noise in schools impairs the development of memory and attention in children aged seven to ten. The researchers focused on two essential cognitive abilities for learning: attention span and working memory. Attention span helps a child focus on relevant information, while working memory stores and manipulates information over short periods.
The work was conducted with 2,680 participants and was led by Maria Foraster and Jordi Sunyer at ISGlobal, an institution supported by the La Caixa Foundation. The project spanned a full year and used cognitive tests administered four times, alongside parallel measurements of noise both in classroom courtyards and inside classrooms.
Beyond basic working memory, researchers differentiated complex working memory, which describes the ability to process information that must be held and manipulated continually. The study found that after one year, progression in working memory, complex working memory, and attention span lagged in students attending schools with higher levels of traffic noise.
For instance, every 5 decibel increase in external noise was associated with an 11.4 percent slower improvement in working memory and a 23.5 percent lower development in complex working memory. Similarly, a 5 decibel rise in external traffic noise correlated with a 4.8 percent slower growth in attention span compared with peers in quieter environments.
“The study supports the idea that childhood is a sensitive period during which external stimuli such as noise can influence rapid cognitive development that occurs before puberty,” commented Jordi Sunyer.
The researchers also compared noise exposure in different environments. Using a Barcelona road traffic noise map from 2012, they estimated average home noise levels for each participant but found no clear link between residential noise and cognitive development. The researchers suggested that school noise may be more disruptive to concentration and learning processes than home noise due to the immediacy of classroom demands.
The work aligns with broader evidence showing that transportation noise can affect children’s cognitive development in school settings and complements prior observations of aircraft noise and road pollution effects on learning. The study highlights the school environment as a potential target for interventions aimed at protecting cognitive development during childhood and preadolescence.
References for this article come from PLoS Medicine and related ISGlobal publications. The study contributes to the growing understanding of how environmental factors encountered during early schooling influence long-term academic outcomes.
Overall, the findings underscore the importance of quieter schools and policies to reduce traffic noise around educational facilities to support better learning and cognitive development in children.
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