The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea (한국음향학회지)

The Acoustical Society of Korea (한국음향학회)
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Investigation of the listening environment of classrooms for elderly people using speech intelligibility tests

음성명료도 시험에 의한 노인 교육시설의 청취환경 조사

  • Received : 2020.12.09
  • Accepted : 2021.01.19
  • Published : 2021.01.31
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Abstract

The ultimate goal of the present study is to establish the acoustical performance standards of classroom for the elderly who are incomplete hearing people. As a pilot survey, the present study was conducted to investigate the listening environment and the actual condition of speech perception performance of education facilities for elderly, Acoustic performances of two education facilities for elderly in Cheongju were measured and questionnaire survey was done to elderly people. Also, speech intelligibility tests were undertaken by Consonant Vowel Consonant (CVC) and Phonetically Balanced Words (PBW) methods. The questionnaire survey showed that the elderly were satisfied with the listening environment of the educational facilities in general. Also, it was found that acoustical performances satisfy with the acoustic criteria of general classrooms in Korea. However, the results of the speech intelligibility test showed that the scores of elderly were significantly lower than twenties with normal hearing. It was also revealed that the scores are reduced as the age increases. Thus, it was concluded that the acoustical performance standards of educational facilities for the normal hearing were not suitable for educational facilities for the elderly.

본 연구의 궁극적인 목적은 청력 비완전자인 노인을 위한 학습공간의 음향기준을 제시하기 위한 것이다. 사전연구로서 본 연구는 현재 운영 중인 노인 교육시설의 청취환경을 조사하고 이를 이용 중인 노인의 음성 인지성능 실태를 조사하기 위해 진행되었다. 이를 위하여, 청주시 소재 2개 노인 교육시설을 대상으로 물리적 음향성능을 측정하고 설문조사 를 실시하였다. 또한, 음절법과 단어법을 이용한 음성명료도 평가를 수행하였다. 노인을 대상으로 한 설문조사 결과 전반적인 청취환경에는 만족하는 것으로 나타났다. 배경소음, 신호대잡음비, 잔향시간, 음성전달지수와 같은 물리적 음향성능 측정 결과 대한민국 일반교실의 음향성능 기준을 만족하고 있음을 알 수 있었다. 그러나 음성명료도 평가 결과 20대 건청인에 비해 노인 그룹의 점수가 20점 이상의 차이로 월등히 낮았으며, 연령대가 높아질수록 점수 또한 낮아지는 것으로 나타났다. 따라서 현재 사용 중인 일반인 대상 교육시설의 음향성능 기준이 노인 교육시설에 적합하지 않음을 알 수 있었다.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

이 성과는 정부(과학기술정보통신부)의 재원으로 한국연구재단의 지원을 받아 수행된 연구임(NRF-2020R1A2C2009963).

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