Our work in this area
For the past ten years Woolly Shepherd has regularly worked with customers and organisations looking to provide inclusive acoustic environments for deaf people of all ages.
Working with experts
Over the course of this time we have worked with BATOD, Scottish Sensory Centre, Hearing Dogs For Deaf People, ‘Chloe’s and Sophie’s Special Ears Fund’ (CSSEF) The Elizabeth Foundation and Access to Work providing assessments and products for a wide variety of spaces ranging from preschools to offices.
Informed decisions
Our work with CSSEF has been especially rewarding as we have been able to gain access to valuable feedback from teaching staff and parents as to the level of improvement experienced by the child or children our acoustic treatment was installed to support.
This is really important as it helps to inform our future recommendations when it is either economically of physically impractical to target 0.4s, as suggested in BB93.
The idea of, where appropriate, targeting a less onerous reverberation time is further supported in the table below, which compares American and British recommendations.
One such example of a situation where an alternative target reverberation time was sought, is at Little Echoes Nursery in Bagshot, Surrey.
This work, funded by CSSEF, involved assessing two large, high ceilinged, rooms and specifying treatment to support a young child with cochlea implants.
Due to the size of the rooms and their original reverberation times, it was not practical to try and achieve an adjusted time of 0.4s, so we settled on a reduction from 1.3s to 0.6s and 1.0s to 0.6s.
Feedback
“Since the installation of the clouds Henry is completely different; his confidence has grown and his speech and communication have come on in leaps and bounds; he has started playing with other children and has even become quite bossy! The tone of his voice at nursery is much softer and quieter and his words are becoming very clear. The room is so calm even at full capacity. I cannot thank you enough.”
“It’s been amazing honestly and the staff have noticed a huge difference. He was taking his processors off at breakfast and lunch time which was quite upsetting but since the clouds he’s no longer doing it . He’s also standing up for show and tell for the first time ever and talking with lots with confidence! He has made new friends with some of the older children instead of holding onto the teachers ! He’s so happy in the new room.”
