How Classroom Acoustics Fail Autistic Students and Teachers

We know noisy classrooms and learning environments can negatively impact students and teachers. However, these problems can be compounded for those with autism. We talk to Carmen Rosas-Pérez (Heriot-Watt University) about her research to better understand the experiences of autistic people in daily life acoustic environments. 

Associated paper: Carmen Rosas-Pérez, Laurent Galbrun, Mary E. Stewart, and Sarah R. Payne. "How can anyone learn or teach? Experiences of autistic people with sound in schools and universities," Proc. Mtgs. Acoust. 51, 015001 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1121/2.0001741.

Read more from Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics (POMA).

Learn more about Acoustical Society of America Publications.

 
Music Credit: Min 2019 by minwbu from Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=music&utm_content=1022

Transcript

Kat Setzer  00:06

Welcome to Across Acoustics, the official podcast of the Acoustical Society of America's publications office. On this podcast, we will highlight research from our four publications. I'm your host. Kat Setzer, editorial associate for the ASA. 

Kat Setzer  00:25

We know the acoustics of classrooms or other spaces within schools can affect a student's experience. That problem can be compounded when the student is autistic, though. Today I'm talking with Carmen Rosas Perez about her research on this topic, which she presented at the ASA meeting in Chicago in May 2023, and then published in the POMA article, "How can anyone learn or teach? Experiences of autistic people with the sounds in schools and universities." Thanks for taking the time to speak with me today, Carmen. How are you?

Carmen Rosas Perez  00:52

I'm fine. Thank you. Thank you also for inviting me to this podcast. I like it very much, actually, and yeah, it's a pleasure. It's a pleasure.

Kat Setzer  01:02

Yay, good. I'm excited to hear about your research! So first, just tell us a bit about your research background.

Carmen Rosas Perez  01:08

Yeah. So I'm currently finishing, or trying to finish, my PhD at Heriot-Watt University in Scotland, and I'm researching the perception and impact of the acoustic environment on autistic, neurodivergent, and other people that tend to be more noise sensitive and that are usually considered outliers in research and practice in acoustics. My background is in electronic engineering and a bit of architecture, and the master's degree in building acoustics and environmental noise at the University of Malaga in Spain. And I've also done a bit of noise mapping, and to add a bit of contrast, also the sound map of Malaga with binaural recordings of the most characteristic soundscapes, music and places of the city. And then I have been working as an acoustician in a consultancy a bit, and also in some projects like the improvement of the acoustics in a hospital. I also been an early career fellow in a Horizon 2020 project in Chalmers University in Sweden. And there, my research was on the response to low frequency sounds, on the adequacy or not of the acoustical parameters that we use. For example, we did a listening experiment modeling footsteps over different timber floors and a model of the audibility of low frequencies through different facades, different vehicles, like heavy electric vehicles, to model the benefits of electric passes, for example. And yeah, doing all this research, one realizes that not everyone's perception is represented by the hearing curves, the A weighting, the calculation of loudness, etc. So then we could be designing spaces and buildings that are not adequate for everyone, really. And I wanted to do a bit more research on this. And I'm also part of the aural diversity network in the UK, and I invite you all to check it out.

Kat Setzer  03:06

Okay, awesome. How can the acoustics of a space affect learning, particularly for those with sensory or speech processing differences? What long-term impacts can poor acoustics have on autistic people?

Carmen Rosas Perez  03:18

What our study and many other studies show is that the design of educational settings can be far from facilitating learning and teaching, and besides that, they can be really disabling for many people, including autistic students and teachers. So schools and universities with inadequate acoustics can lead to lower levels of learning, first of all, of course. And this has been shown in many studies, I recommend the work by Professor Bridget Shield, by Professor Arianna Astolfi and Professor Lily Wang, among others. 

Carmen Rosas Perez  03:52

But then, besides learning, we see that it's also important to consider the impact on health and well being, because some environments can lead to very high levels of stress affecting, very much and in many ways, students and teachers. So for example, we have in a survey on schools from several countries in Europe, 80% of teachers reported to be a stressed by classroom noise, and also 80% of students, or 85%, something like that, said that there was too much noise in their schools. There are reasons to consider also noise in schools as an occupational noise issue. In fact, the levels measured in some studies in schools and preschools are really high; like in a study in Sweden, I think it was 85 dBAs, if I remember well. 

Kat Setzer  04:40

Oh, wow.

Carmen Rosas Perez  04:41

Yeah. So all day there can be hard. One study in the UK showed that the 65% of teachers have vocal health issues during their career, and also there is a risk of hearing loss due to this position to loud sound during so many hours because, of course, the dose is important too. 

Carmen Rosas Perez  05:04

Then we have the noise in schools also creates inequalities for people with hearing and/or sensory differences, and the impact indeed can be higher on autistic students and autistic teachers, for example, because autistic and other neurodivergent people are more likely to have significant perceptual differences, sensory processing differences, and sensitivity differences, among other things, and these differences often imply, for example, heightened response to sounds and also being more aware of all the sounds around you. And then it can be very hard to filter them out. So being in an environment where you are exposed to many in different sounds, while having to focus on a task, to listen to someone talking or to talk yourself, can be quite challenging. Some people may not get the grades they need to go to university or to be able to cope with to continue their studies, and this may be different if they could be in a better learning environment. 

Carmen Rosas Perez  06:12

We have, for example, participant telling us about their classroom as a child, and I'm going to quote them, because what they say, also, is part of the study in the paper and the thematic analysis that we did. So, "Not conducive for learning, and it didn't change at university. I would love a learning environment that I could cope with. I would love to be able to do a master's and a PhD, but for my own mental health, with that kind of environment, it's not going to happen. Very hostile environments for people like me, but there's lots of people like me, and they are not wrong." And then another one told us, "I aspired to be an architect. I didn't have the right qualifications. Would I have had the right qualifications if I had been in a better learning environment? I don't know. Maybe yes, maybe no, but I think children-- and not just children, everybody-- need the best environment to learn and to experience life. Nobody should be detrimented because of the environment that we are in and because people want it to be the norm." And that last point, I'll discuss it a bit more later, because it's quite relevant. So yes, there are many reports on the distress that the school environments can provoke, and also the lifelong trauma. In many cases, there are children that can't cope at all and are missing many days, weeks, or months of school, actually. So disabling acoustics can cause a lot of long-lasting effects in people's self image and physical/psychological well-being, and on their personal and professional outcomes.

Kat Setzer  07:49

Oh, wow.Yeah. Yeah, that does sound very distressing overall as a situation. 

Carmen Rosas Perez  07:56

Yeah. It touches everything really. 

Kat Setzer  07:58

Yeah, because that is just a long lasting impact. So what are the shortcomings of current acoustic standards for classrooms when considering neurodivergent individuals?

Carmen Rosas Perez  08:07

Yes, we could have a whole hour only talking about this, and then another few hours talking about the rest of environments, really. I like to clarify here maybe, that talking about neurodivergent people and autism from a neurodiversity perspective, absolutely do not mean to reject the notion of disability at all. Rather the opposite. It's just acknowledging that we are all different, whether disabled or not, and should be respected and included in all aspects of society, ideally following the social or the human rights model of disability, for example. 

Carmen Rosas Perez  08:44

So on acoustics standards, there are, of course, variation depending on the country, but one of the main things that we need to be careful with is the focus on limits and numerical parameters. That is also a very common reflection that we have now. And we have the acoustical parameters that we normally use in room, acoustics like reverberation time, clarity, or speech transmission index. These parameters are good at what they do-- that is representing a part of the measurable reality. Then how do these measures relate to people's experiences? This is a bit more complex, right? And we also have the considerable complication that there is not one single human experience, or even one single experience in the same person in the same way every day of our lives, so we know that with sounds, many experiences are very much individual and depend on so many non-acoustical factors. 

Carmen Rosas Perez  09:50

And then, on the other hand, when we measure classrooms or preschools or university, we use the standards with the heights and microphonesare specified where we have to situate them, but sometimes these are for adult size and ears, and this can be a problem. So that, actually there is a project in Sweden, and I think with the collaboration, some universities in Germany, is trying to bring the measurements techniques a bit closer to the children's perception, for example, using a smaller head and torso equipment, which seems reasonable, right, to measure from their perspective? 

Kat Setzer  10:29

Right, right.

Carmen Rosas Perez  10:32

And then also, we don't know everything about children's hearing and the perception and everything. That's another topic there. So another big issue is that the acoustical parameters that we are using to try to reflect or predict people's experiences have been created following what we call "normal hearing" with air quotes, and this was determined through this response mostly to pure tones that maybe don't represent very well real-life scenarios, and also with participants that were young university students, like 18 to 25 years old. We have had different hearing curves since the creation of the Fletcher-Munson curve, but these curves have served as the basis to develop the A-weighting that is present in most of the evaluation techniques that we apply today. So here we can have some discrepancies from what can be annoying or not for some people, especially for people who are more sensitive to low frequencies. For example, there has been some studies showing some improvements in people's perception of intelligibility in schools when improving the performance of sound parameters at low frequencies, especially the reverberation time. And this also can help with the intelligibility for foreign language lectures or for students with another native language. And also, by the way, many of these parameters were used to define the importance of consonant laws and all that are based on the English language. And there have been some alternatives proposing research to use with other languages. 

Carmen Rosas Perez  12:13

Yeah. Coming back to the representation issue, if we check the percentage of the population represented by what is considered, as the “otologically normal person”, according to the ISO 226, for example, it's like people from 18 to 25 years old. And then if we check the data about the population of that group of people in the European Union, for example, it says that people age from 15-29 years old are the 17% of the population. And then there are part of this group, of course, that are overall divergent due to many different reasons, neurodiversity or others. So even fewer people are, like, represented by this “normal hearing”. One of the implications of all this is that the dBAs, for example, may not take into account the amount of low frequencies that some people perceive and how these frequencies are interfering with some intellectual tasks. There are studies showing that low frequencies of ventilation systems, for example, have a significant impact on the performance in offices for adults, and maybe for children it's even more significant. And then a participant in our study said that they struggled to give their own lessons at university due to the constant humming sound of the projector, which we could presume that it wouldn't be that loud, right, especially in dBAs but it was for this person was very, very present all the time. It was very difficult to ignore. And then the dBAs also can underestimate the effect of traffic noise entering the classroom, which is also problematic because windows and other materials have much lower insulation at low frequencies, and they are often more difficult to measure due to the standing waves. They can be louder at some points because of that. So, yeah, etc, etc. Super fun world of low frequencies. I actually, I like it very much. But then, yes, the differences between the weighted and unweighted values at 50 or 100 hertz, for example, can be considerable for some people. So at the end, if you consider all the types of aural differences, including also hyperacusis, tinnitus, auditory processing disorder, the presbycusis, and also children's hearing, if we consider that as a hearing that is not “typical”, we have that we may not be designing spaces, not only for everyone, but not for even for a majority, in many cases, like in schools. 

Carmen Rosas Perez  12:29

And then we are not really considering either the dose that much. Not only outside the school before starting the day and after finishing, but inside the school, and not only in the classroom, but in the whole building. And this is important also, because it all counts and it all takes energy and cognitive capacity. There is a very helpful model regarding this, created by Holly Sutherland, an autistic researcher, that proposes a kind of capacity jar model, with a jar representing our capacity to cope, not only with sensory things, but, for example, the stress for an exam that we have that day or that week, having to measure, to control everything that we say and do, to not be misunderstood, to remember to keep eye contact and so to behave in a less autistic way, we could say, which is called masking. And it takes so much energy and resources, but unfortunately, it's still needed sometimes, because there are many repercussions if we don't do it. So this jar gets more and more things inside during the day, and that's why it can happen that a loud sound or a quiet sound is the drop that is too much. There isn't capacity for that drop, even if it's very small. So that's why some small things in appearance can provoke a very intense distress in autistic people, because it's never that small thing alone. And this also means that some sounds that may not be reflected on the typical parameters can have a huge impact, like the bells, dragging chairs, central heating, mechanical ventilations, or hand dryers in toilets, because it's also a matter of the number and the accumulation of sound stimuli. A participant mentioned that as a child, they would sit terrified through the every lesson, waiting for the bell to go off every 40 minutes, so they didn't really learn a great deal, and they were just there, terrified all day, every day. And another implication is that other sensorial aspects are very important too, like fluorescent lights or strong smells in the canteen, that also were mentioned as sources of distraction and discomfort in our study. So yeah, in the best case scenario, maybe we are designing the specifications for a typical adult with typical sensitivity and typical perceptual capacities. And yeah, it seems that there's still a lot of work to do in acoustical and non-acoustical side.

Kat Setzer  16:06

Right, right. So to pivot, you made a really interesting point in the article about noisy classrooms also impacting autistic educators, although a lot of research only focuses on students. What do we know about the effect of noise on autistic teachers?

Carmen Rosas Perez  17:57

One of the positive things of the study also, I hope, is to make friendly reminder that there are autistic people everywhere in all kinds of jobs and environments, and also we are adults. We grow up. So research should also consider all this, and is doing it more and more really. And there are really great studies about the experience of autistic adults in healthcare, for example, or in universities and in other sectors. And yeah, the sensorial part is always highlighted in these studies, and in particular the auditory experiences, because maybe the other sensory stimuli are less intrusive, or maybe than sound, or easier to filter out? And we know that sound is very, like, highly prioritized by the brain to evaluate the health or the possibilities that we have in an environment, to detect dangers, and all these things. So the auditory part is always the first thing and the most important thing mentioned, and in our study as in general, these experiences of the participants as educators were, as mentioned, bad. 

Kat Setzer  19:10

Oh!

Carmen Rosas Perez  19:10

Yeah, in one word. They were not great. We can say to the point that they left their formal teaching career. Some of them have continued in other ways, but yeah, in the schools continuing, like, full time-- no. They mentioned many factors for this, and the sensory aspects were among the main ones. They were also feeling bad professionals because of not being able to cope with environment. And they found this quite early, yeah, in the careers, that the dose of noise they were having to endure every day was too much for them. And I'd like to read another comment from participants reflecting on what they have observed in the schools where they worked. So, "I kind of think back now to certain places that I have worked, and there was absolutely no sound science or no acoustic planning, no appreciation for the acoustics of a working environment there. Who designed them? It's just an awareness of the impact that acoustics can have on workplaces, and especially with some of these multi-million new schools that are being built." So, yes, this is interesting, because we know that low budgets are often mentioned as justification for not having great acoustics, but we also know that sometimes this isn't the main reason, maybe.

Kat Setzer  20:36

Okay, okay, so tell us about your study itself. What were your goals? How did you select participants? And what did you ask in your questionnaire? 

Carmen Rosas Perez  20:46

Yes, we wanted to explore the lived experiences of autistic adults in relation to acoustic environments, and so their individual perception of sounds and the impact on their life. There were in total 12 participants, in this case living in the UK. We did online interviews, and we were very lucky, because we had quite high diversity in age, and almost half of the participants were over 45 years old, which is, like, for experiences with sounds and acoustics and real life situations can be quite different from what we can have from younger participants, right? And this point actually is being highlighted by several studies in acoustics that are calling for more diversity in age and other personal characteristics, which I personally think is very needed. 

Carmen Rosas Perez  21:34

And then the questions were mostly about, what were their experiences in common settings in daily life, like at home, at work, outdoors and indoor leisure environments, and then also with sounds and situations they consider having a negative impact on their life and well being, and which ones they consider having a positive effect. Because we also wanted to know about how sounds and certain environments can have this positive impact. And indeed, we had many, many mentioned, and that was also very nice. And we asked them also for the coping strategies that they were mostly using, like earplugs or noise scans in his headphones, but also leaving a place or not going at all, which is avoidance, and of course, has many repercussions, or to start smoking, to go to the smoking room because it's quieter, as some of the participants, who were teachers, were doing, not...

Kat Setzer  22:36

Oh!

Carmen Rosas Perez  22:36

 Yes, and so yeah, also we asked them for measures that, in their opinion, could improve their experiences. Most participants were actually quite knowledgeable about some acoustical phenomena and about noise regulations, because they had had some interactions with councils, companies, etc, not very satisfactory in all the occasions we have to say, and then they also had so many insightful reflections about their experiences. So when talking about solutions, many said, I think this wouldn't work for me, because I tried it and it made things worse. Things like this are good to know that they have experience in real life, right? So, for example, this was mentioned regarding nature and other positive sounds being played through loudspeakers. So we as designers need to consider them. These experiences should be taken into account to create more positive but also accessible environments that are not bothering very much some people. And the thing is that we had so many accounts about negative experiences in schools, and importantly, not only from when the participants were children, but also, yeah, by chance, many of them had been teachers, maybe because of how the call for participants was being shared on social media, organizations, and I guess mouth to mouth, I guess as well. So we decided to write a separate paper about it, even if originally we didn't want to focus on the schools and children, but because the research on this is much more extensive. But it's good that now we have this perspective of autistic teachers that we think is very valuable and hopefully is considered a bit more in the future. 

Carmen Rosas Perez  24:25

Yeah, we have many limitations in the study. One of them is that we didn't have autistic people who communicate in different ways that are not orally or writing. We had one participant doing the interview by email. But we don't think that necessarily this means that the sensory experiences and needs of many autistic people aren't considered or represented because, for example, there is a recent study where autistic adults self-reported having more sensory needs compared to those reported by informants of other autistic adults, and especially those related to sounds and acoustical conditions. So this actually could mean that informants sometimes can underestimate the sensory needs of autistic people.

Kat Setzer  25:17

Okay, so in your results from the study, you say that participants said schools can be "sensory hell." What did you learn about the participants' experiences?

Carmen Rosas Perez  25:28

Yes, well, so much.

Kat Setzer  25:31

Yeah.

Carmen Rosas Perez  25:31

On one hand, we could say that the impact of noise in schools isn't exclusive to autistic students and teachers, and that's one of the reasons there's so much research about acoustics in schools around the world, because children and educators need improvements. Actually, when I presented the paper, someone asked me if making improvements wouldn't benefit everyone, and I said, "Yes, of course," and it's just that it's important to realize that for some people, the negative impact can be much more intense, but this also means that the improvements can be literally life changing in many cases. 

Carmen Rosas Perez  25:31

So, yes. Then, as children, they struggle a lot, as I mentioned. And to illustrate just an example of "sensory hell," a participant said that "I realize now that being in a class with 30 others in an open-plan school with two other classes means that I was exposed to the sounds of 90 other people, shuffling, sneezing, sniffing, talking, whispering, rustling, clanking and all the other noises people make in a bare environment with linoleum floors and hard chairs and tables, running water, central heating, and also, the school building was new, so the smells of paint, linoleum, plaster, carpet glue, and all the other fittings were still fresh, and also there were fluorescent lights in the ceiling everywhere." So yes, one could say that this can be hard for many hours, many days, and many years to have to be able to focus and to study or to work, to give the lesson. 

Carmen Rosas Perez  27:12

And then a very, very important thing that is reflected in the study is the lack of understanding and acceptance of differences, and this is not directly related to acoustics, but we see that it's reflected somehow in the lack of consideration of diversity that we tend to have in research and practice, and this can have an immense impact on neurodivergent and other disabled people. So as children or students, far from being understood and supported by educators or even by their families, in some cases, participants remember being accused of exaggerating, making a fuss, wanting attention, while in reality, they were trying to cope and mask their struggles as much as they could without wanting to be noticed at all. And the same happens with those who are educators. They were doing as much as they could to cope, to do their job as well as possible without bothering anyone or asking for adjustments. But the attitude that they often got while expressing their perception was like, "Well, it doesn't bother me, so it's not really a problem, and we are not going to do anything about it." So we have referred to this as sensory gaslighting, which is something that seems to be too common in and constant in autistic people's lives. And this lack of understanding also is reflected in some people's attitude towards adjustments. For example, a participant told us that their child was not allowed to wear ear muffs for their sound sensitivity, even if they would help to cope with the noises in the schools and have more energy and be able to focus and learn and listen better, right? So to attend a school with the same level of comfort of other children? And the reason that they were given is that it wouldn't be fair to the rest of the children, or that it would be requested by more students, which is quite a strange view of how accessibility works. Because, well, if other students need earmuffs too, maybe they could use it as well.

Kat Setzer  29:21

Right?

Carmen Rosas Perez  29:21

Or we could do some, for example, and then we could do something about the noise for everyone, because it seems that it could benefit many people. We have a problem here. So, yeah, the lack of understanding of auditory differences in this case, can lead to a lack of support consideration and adaptations, whether they are requested or not, and it all has consequences and very, very significant in the case of autistic people.

Kat Setzer  29:50

Yeah, that is... I already used the word distressing earlier today, but it is very distressing to think about how big of an impact it is, and also just the delegitimazing people's experiences...

Carmen Rosas Perez  30:02

Yes.

Kat Setzer  30:03

By saying that, "Oh, it's not that bad, because I didn't experience that." 

Carmen Rosas Perez  30:07

Yes, exactly. 

Kat Setzer  30:08

So not all of the participants knew they were autistic when they were still in school. How did that impact their experiences?

Carmen Rosas Perez  30:15

Yeah, I think this is very interesting, because they have many thoughts about how not knowing that they were autistic when they were children has affected them in the sense. One thing that was common was this internalization of that denial of their experiences. So many participants convinced themselves that there wasn't a real need to change anything or to ask for adjustments, because they were exaggerating, right? And this led to unnecessary high amount of suffering and distress, and also to a kind of learned reflex of denying their own perception and needs in any situation really, which can be really like, yeah... Imagine... And at the same time having constant thoughts of being weaker or less adequate, because they were seeing how other people were able to cope with things that were very hard for them. And many of them thought that others must be perceiving the same, right? Because it's like, okay, this is how, I'm a child, you, they are all a child. I'm in a classroom hearing this. I guess that everyone is hearing this. Or in a children's birthday party, I guess everyone is having this same perception. But they were struggling, and other people seem not to be struggling, so there was this dissonance since early in their lives, and then learning that they were autistic helped very much with this and to remove a bit this negative self image, because they discovered that, in fact, they were not perceiving the world in the same way that other people that were in appearance being able to cope. Or also they were also enjoying things, including sounds and music, in a different and sometimes more intense way than other people, and having this validation of these differences that were rejected during all their lives made them more confident, also about making changes and adapting the environments for their own needs. So in this and many other aspects, the diagnosis was really positive, and all the knowledge from becoming aware that you are autistic can also really help in many ways. So we also saw that having to ask for adjustments, for example, is itself a barrier, and it has some negative effects, unfortunately, like discrimination, judgment, and doubts about skills and capacity to do certain things. There are many researchers showing this, and then many participants had a fear to talk about their experiences, due to the possible consequences on their personal and professional life, which is understandable because they have suffered these negative attitudes many times since childhood, and several have been bullied as children and also as adults. So then the use of individual adjustments has also this and other problems that, for example, several participants mentioned that they would like to not have to use ear defenders or headphones because they were uncomfortable for them, and they can be also expensive. So all these are kind of arguments to make environments more accessible by default, without having to ask for certificates or diagnosis or anything really first, because it's common not to be aware of our differences or knowing that we are autistic as children and adults sometimes, and there are many barriers to access formal diagnosis, and we have still many stereotypes and prejudice. But according to the British Royal College of Psychiatry, actually the majority of autistic people nowadays don't know that they are autistic. So these are the statistics that we have. 

Kat Setzer  33:55

Yeah.

Carmen Rosas Perez  33:56

Yeah, so just if someone feels that they need to use the ear protection or quiet spaces or anything, just let's make all available and "normalize", with air quotes, its use. And actually on this topic, there are many misinformed myths that would be important to discuss here, because some participants and many people are being advised to expose themselves or their children to loud sounds to kind of desensitize their hearing. And this, as you can understand, can be a bit problematic for a lot, not only because of potential hearing damage, especially in children, because also there isn't how this affects to children. We need more research on this, but also, there isn't robust evidence showing that this is possible at all in noise-sensitive people. There are a couple of studies that conclude that it's positive for noise sensitive people to increase the level of exposure and that this leads to reducing the sensitivity, but I think it's kind of important to mention that these studies were not done with noise-sensitive people, so maybe the results would be different. 

Kat Setzer  33:56

Yeah, right!

Carmen Rosas Perez  34:12

For example, instead, there is a evidence showing that autistic people usually have a lower level of adaptation to loudness. So here we have the participants were being told to get over it, and were exposing themselves to noisy environments, and yet they never got used to it in the short or in the long term, rather the opposite, while it has had many serious negative consequences on them. So all this can mean that the level of sensitivity to noise not only does not decrease with time and exposure in autistic people, but the negative effects on the person can progressively increase.

Kat Setzer  36:02

What did you learn about the experience of autistic teachers?

Carmen Rosas Perez  36:05

Yes, I learned that it can be even harder than the experiences for non-autistic teachers, which is already saying a lot and many, many challenges could be avoided or at least reduced for everyone, really. In fact, if we consider the needs of autistic teachers a bit more, non-autistic teachers would probably benefit as well, as we said. And the same way that if you consider the needs of autistic and neuraldivergent and aural divergent students, other students could benefit too. So many participants started to use some strategies to cope with the noise themselves and to have some sense of control and respite. And I think this is interesting. For example, one person found it very helpful to play classical music while their children were entering in the classroom, and then also during certain activities, and she found that that was helping her and also the children. And this is related to a very important thing that a participant said, that it may be the case that they, as autistic teachers, can support autistic students in a better way, because their own experiences and needs can make them understand a bit better the experiences and needs of autistic children. So students could have the support of someone who probably gets it and probably won't dismiss their experiences and the perception and their temporary or not temporary needs, etc. So we could say that the presence of autistic teachers can be also very positive for increasing the understanding of neurological and sensory differences among students and parents and other teachers, hopefully.

Kat Setzer  37:52

Right. If students have that representation, they'll have advocates for themselves, but they can also see how they can live successfully while still being different. 

Carmen Rosas Perez  38:01

Exactly.

Kat Setzer  38:02

 So what changes can be made to improve acoustic environments for autistic students and teachers? 

Carmen Rosas Perez  38:07

So I think here we could talk about, as we have seen, that there are some acoustical issues and non acoustical issues, so some acoustical changes and other that are not acoustical, but social. The first one would be something that we acousticians tend to repeat a bit, that is to improve the knowledge in acoustics that designers of schools have. Because if you check architecture magazines, there are some recent, very expensive and award-winning projects that when you look at them, with all those big, smooth halls and gyms and canteens with industrial design and all that... at rush hour must be quite a sonic experience. And then yeah, some standards say that only a few rooms should be suitable for children with hearing differences or additional needs. But as Professor Bridget Shield said in a recent keynote, "All children visit other spaces in a school, so the halls, the canteens, the sport halls, so it's necessary to pay attention to the whole building." And also the outdoor acoustic environments is also important. And actually it can be a source of restoration in many cases, especially if there are some natural elements around, or they can be included as part of the improvements, and some measures that could help and that have been mentioned by the participants, would be to offer alternatives to loud bells and alarms or adjustments so people don't suffer with them, especially in the case of drills that can be predicted, right. Then, to offer quiet or sensory rooms, maybe with the possibility of having some music or sounds, ideally chosen by the person. And importantly, that is not a seclusion room. That has happened in some schools, unfortunately. They have an isolation room, and they call it a quiet room. And then to make a sensory map, so people can have information about what are the main stimuli around, so they can prepare themselves a bit more and have more agency, which is a very important part of the whole perception process, right? 

Carmen Rosas Perez  40:17

And then, besides better acoustic standards, and enforcing them maybe, and control for  that they have been applied. It is also needed to improve the understanding and acceptance of diversity in people's needs, including the diversity among autistic people. Like, we are all not the same. So then the findings in the study emphasized that inclusivity is not only about the design of the building where education takes place, but also it's about the design of that education and attitude towards differences, because even if when people recognize and accept our needs, the challenges due to the dismissive and defensive attitudes aren't just too frequent. Among thoughts shared during the interviews was that many of the arguments used to not provide adjustments or changes are rooted really in kind of the social perception of what is normal and good, more than in a lack of resources. And this says a lot, I think, about the importance that we give to "normalcy" (again, with air quotes, always) in the conversation about accessibility, because it's there in the background all the time, is, if you analyze, it's like, sometimes it's like, money, budget. But is it really, or is it... Is it that we don't we consider that this is the way, the normal way, and any other way is divergent, and we feel weird about it? 

Kat Setzer  41:46

Right,ight, right. 

Carmen Rosas Perez  41:47

I really love the interview you had with Melissa Baese-Berk and Paul Reed about linguistics diversity. And I would like to quote a very important thing, in my opinion, that Melissa said, in this case about their students, that "They can look at examples of things they encounter in the real world, and have a better sense of what is typical, naturally occurring variation, and what is something that might warrant some sort of intervention. And if you have only ever been exposed to one type of thing, and then you see something that varies from that type of thing, you're going to think of that as being deviant and requiring intervention to become more like the standard thing that you have seen." And this is very much what happens to autistic people in all sorts of aspects, from the way we communicate, we behave, we perceive things, etc. So I believe that creating enabling environments that are inclusive to anyone, is positive, also to kind of normalize that there isn't a normal really. 

Kat Setzer  42:49

Right?.

Carmen Rosas Perez  42:50

So, yeah, these are some of the reasons that, like, supporting diversity in all kinds of environments. I think it's very positive, obviously, at the end for everyone in society and recognizing differences and being inclusive, hopefully, will be reflected also in how we think about environments and requirements to make them more accessible for everyone, because it's all a kind of feedback loop. We could say, like, if we don't see groups of people participating in the community, the particular needs of these groups won't be seen, and spaces won't be designed for us, and therefore we won't be using these spaces, so we won't be seen at the end. 

Kat Setzer  43:30

Right, right. Kind of big cultural changes, ultimately, just cultural mindset changes. 

Carmen Rosas Perez  43:36

Yes.

Kat Setzer  43:36

But it allows a large number of people to participate in life more, right? You know, to get schooling, or...

Kat Setzer  43:44

... keep careers as teachers rather than leaving after a year and that kind of thing.

Carmen Rosas Perez  43:44

Yes.

Carmen Rosas Perez  43:49

Yeah, well being and that. I wish it was, "Okay, let's put a reverberation time at 0.4 seconds." But it's not that easy.

Kat Setzer  43:59

So what are the next steps in this research?

Carmen Rosas Perez  44:01

So we have done an online survey this time with people from all around the world who consider themselves noise sensitive. We got 311 participants, not only autistic, also neurotypical and other neurodivergent people, and the questionnaire was based on many of the themes and elements that came from the interviews. So we have asked about coping strategies and solutions that they find helpful, so we can also have a bit more understanding of what are the most common issues in real and built daily life environments, and also what can be helpful to improve them and what can be not helpful, too. Also, we ask about experiences of dismissal, rejection of adjustments, because we think that this is a very important aspect of the experience of having a different perception and sensitivity, as we have said. And then, yeah, actually the stress and trauma and feeling helpless due to these experiences often actually increased the sensitivity and affect the response to sounds, and this has been noted in research, for example, by Rainer Guski. We are still analyzing the results, and they will be available in the future, hopefully, but I guess we could say that one of the goals of the whole project is to kind of encourage our colleagues to increase the diversity in our work, basically.

Kat Setzer  45:27

Okay, okay. Do you have any other closing thoughts?

Carmen Rosas Perez  45:30

Yes, so many. I like to say that it may be reasonable to consider that adequate acoustics in a school, universities, or educational settings, should be as normal as chairs and tables, because learning is just not possible in disabling conditions. And schools, not only in the acoustical perspective, shouldn't be environments where you have to be stressed to cope with the things around, but where you should be able to feel safe and learn and teach and thrive. Also, I like to emphasize that what many participants mentioned, that is that it's not really needed to feel exactly what other people feel or to hear or to perceive things exactly as other people perceive them in order to accept their experiences as valid, instead of dismissing them. So even if we cannot measure these experiences or quantify them, a good practice would be to believe people and respecting people's perception. And then finally, I would really like to thank all the participants of our studies, because they were so generous sharing their experiences with us and so wonderful and just thank you so so so much. 

Kat Setzer  46:51

Thank you for sharing this with us. It sounds like such important and impactful research that could hopefully help a lot of people, once again, gain access to a lot of aspects of life that they sort of get shoved out of, even if it's just inadvertently, just because they perceive the acoustic environment a little differently. Hopefully we, as we begin to understand the experiences of neurodivergent individuals better, will become better able to create standards for learning spaces that work better for more people.

Carmen Rosas Perez  47:21

Exactly.

Kat Setzer  47:22

Thank you again for taking the time to speak with me today, and I wish you the best of luck on your research.

Carmen Rosas Perez  47:26

Thank you very much. Yeah, thank you.

Kat Setzer  47:31

Thank you for tuning into Across Acoustics. If you would like to hear more interviews from our authors about their research please subscribe and find us on your preferred podcast platform.