A pilot study: The restorative potential of soundscape on children

Some studies have proved that restorative acoustic environment has positive effects on human health and wellbeing. The aim of this study is to investigate children's needs for restorative environment, their restorative experience in living environment and what are potential restorative soundscape elements for children. Questionnaire surveys and acoustic measurements were performed in school classrooms and urban parks of Tianjin, China. 255 children aged 7-12 completed a questionnaire involving demographic information and restorative soundscape. It was found that children's requirements for restorative environment increased significantly with the increasing of age, and it was also affected by the interaction of age and gender. In addition, both classrooms and urban parks were proved to have great restorative potential which was highly related to environmental functional and spatial properties. As for soundscape in classrooms and urban parks, human sounds were the dominant sounds though natural sounds were expected to be added and evaluated to have more restorative function by children. Moreover, the sound pressure level in urban parks and classrooms was 63 dBA and 55 dBA respectively, and children paid more attention to the soundscape in classrooms. These findings revealed soundscape had restorative potential on children and would provide practical guidance on how to design the soundscape of those places systematically.