Christmas is a noisy time of year, especially if you have kids on holidays and family over during the festive season. With everything happening, it is common to be overwhelmed by all the noise and forget to protect our ears from it all. Excessive noise can be damaging to the ears, so here are a few great ways we can reduce the impact of all the holiday noise.
1. Choose the right Christmas toys
Choose toys that have a ‘try me’ option to test and see if the noises they make are too loud. When listening for loudness, make sure to test them up close, as children hold toys a lot closer to the ear than an adult or the manufacturer would. There are many toys on the market that produce sounds above 100db, which can be damaging when exposed directly for longer than 15 minutes. If the toy has already been preselected and it is too loud you can always put a piece of tape over the speaker to reduce the volume a bit or take out the batteries if you wish to get rid of the noise all together.
2. Turn the background sound down
This one might seem obvious but when you have family over and everyone is enjoying themselves, ensure that no matter where anyone is standing, they can be easily heard by the person they are speaking to when using a comfortable speaking voice. Test to see if this is the case with a listening partner; use a comfortable speaking voice to talk to them with music in the background, if you have to yell to be heard then the volume is too loud. You can also place decorations or obstacles right next to the speakers to prevent people from getting to close to the source, where the sound will be the loudest.
3. Choosing the right gifts for teenagers and adults
When choosing technology for listening to music and movies through earphones, selecting noise cancelling headphones are a great idea. This reduces the noise outside what is coming from the device meaning the person does not need to turn the volume up so high to hear the sound from the device well. Select headphones that fit well to prevent sound leakage, which will work to keep the volume lower as the sound travels clearer.
Contact us for results focused speech therapy
This article was written by our Speech Pathologist Ashleigh Fattah who is a Speech Pathology Australia member. If you have speech pathology related questions, make an appointment. We‘ll provide you with simple and effective therapy targeted to your concerns. Contact us today.
