PURPOSES: to investigate the effects of high sound pressure levels in classrooms and changes on acoustic immittance on auditory skills of children in early literacy. METHODS: quantitative and exploratory study. Acoustic measurement, using the dosimeter, visual inspection of the external auditory canal, tonal audiometry thresholds, speech recognition tests and acoustic immittance. The results of the acoustic measurements through the dosimeter in four schools in Santa Maria, RS, Brazil divided the sample of 87 children of 3 and 4 years of primary school, aged eight to ten years,into two groups - group 1 / not exposed and group 2/ exposed to levels higher than 80dB(A). The sample was also separated in 38 children without changes in acoustic immittance measurements and 49 with changes, measured in theirs listening skills for the dichotic test of alternate disyllabics - SSW. RESULTS: the G1 has presented better results in DC and EC on both immittance terms, however without evidence of statistics difference; it was showed similar performance between the groups; the G1 has showed better results in phonemic decoding, but worse results in codification and organization sub profiles. CONCLUSION: this study has demonstrated that high sound pressure levels in classrooms don´t interfere in children´s auditory skills in learning process tested using the SSW.
Hearing; Noise; School Health
