The director of the Institute of Neurosciences of Montpellier worries on franceinfo about too long a listening time for the youngest minors, which would lead to “problems with noise at 40 years old” and “more at 60 years old”.
“You have to pay attention to the duration and the level of listening in the child”, alert Thursday, March 9 on franceinfo Jean-Luc Puel, the president of the National Hearing Day association. According to the survey carried out by Jean-Luc Puel, also director of the Institute of Neurosciences of Montpellier, “40%” parents claim that “their children spend between one and four hours listening to programs or playing games with headphones or earphones every day”.
>>> An alert survey on the hearing health of children under 10
“At equal noise, one that would not be traumatic for the adult would be for the child”explains the professor, who adds that this overexposure of very young people to noise can have serious consequences. “It is no longer at 60 that we will have problems with noise, such as presbycusis, but it will be at 40.”
franceinfo: Are children increasingly exposed to noise and noise pollution?
Jean-Luc Puel: When we ask parents, 40% of them tell us that their children spend between one and four hours listening to programs or playing games with headphones or earphones every day. It’s quite worrying. The problem is that this will cause hearing problems. Children’s ears are more fragile than in adults. We will not see an immediate hearing disorder, but we will see premature aging of the ear. It is no longer at 60 that we will have problems with noise, such as presbycusis, but it will be at 40. It’s irreversible, and that’s the problem.
What are your recommendations for protecting children’s ears?
It is believed that a child’s ear continues to develop until about seven years of age. Attention must be paid to the duration and the level of listening in the child. You might not have to spend four hours a day with a helmet when you’re under ten.
“At equal noise, one that would not be traumatic for the ear of the adult would be for the child.”
Jean-Luc Puel, director of the Institute of Neurosciences of Montpellieron franceinfo
But there are also a lot of places for children that are very noisy and should be avoided. There are, for example, these large leisure sheds where children play trampolines with inflatable structures. There you have dozens of children screaming and a child can scream up to 110 decibels! Then you have the canteens which are noisy. You have the swimming pools, with the tiling which reverberates to the maximum. You also have the concerts. You have to think about putting on noise-canceling headphones as soon as children are exposed to too much noise at a concert, or even at the cinema, because the sound is very loud there.
What should alert in a child or adolescent?
We must be alerted if the child complains of being exposed to noise, if he detects hissing or has a feeling of cotton ears. There are also more subtle signs, such as a child who is unusually tired at the end of the day or who is nervous. Perhaps behind all this there is deafness or hearing loss, even slight, which means that this child at school will have to concentrate much more than his classmates, which causes fatigue.