What the child hears

Speech intelligibility depends less on how loud a room is than on the margin between the teacher’s voice and the background — and on how long the room rings. Move the controls.

45 dB(A)
0.60 s
60 dB(A)
Speech-to-noise
+15 dB
STI
0.67
Intelligibility
Good
BadPoorFairGoodExcellent
0.000.300.450.600.751.00

Against the classroom standard (ANSI/ASA S12.60)

Background ≤ 35 dB(A)
RT60 ≤ 0.6 s
Speech-to-noise ≥ +15 dB
STI ≥ 0.60

Reading it. The teacher speaking at a normal effort reaches a nearby child at roughly 60 dB(A). Raise the background or lengthen the reverberation and the STI falls — a room can be perfectly quiet and still ring too long to be clearly understood. Children need a wider margin than adults: the standard sets a speech-to-noise ratio of at least +15 dB for core learning spaces, alongside a background at or below 35 dB(A) and a reverberation time at or below 0.6 s.