Imagine it’s an ordinary night when everyone in the house has gone to bed. Your children are safely and soundly asleep and you yourself have now been asleep for a number of hours. All of a sudden, the smoke alarm goes off and you awake to what is a dreaded scenario for any parent, the sound of a beeping smoke alarm and the faint but certain smell of smoke in the house. Question: what do you think would cause your children to awake quicker - the sound of the smoke alarm or the sound of their mother’s voice calling for them to wake up?

A unique study by a team of researchers at Columbus Children’s Hospital, Ohio, has discovered that children who were in a deep sleep, responded better to the sound of their mothers’ voice than the sound of a beeping smoke alarm. The small study of 24 children, aged between 6 and 12, used sound recordings of their mothers voices saying “(child’s first name x 2)! Wake up! Get out of bed! Leave the room!”

23 out of the 24 children awoke to the recording of their mothers’ voice, yet only 14 woke up to the sound of the alarm. However, of those who awoke to the sound of both, the avarage time it took each child to wake up to the recording of their mothers’ voice was approximately 20 seconds, compared to a full 3 minutes to the conventional sound of a smoke alarm. Only one child didn’t respond to either sound.

Dr Gary Smith, who co-authored the study, highlighted that further research was needed to determine why children may respond to the sound of their mothers’ voice better than the sound of an alarm. Were they responding to the sound of their mothers’ voice or the sound of their own name? The fact the sound of the voice recordings were a lower frequency of sound than the alarm could also have been a key factor. It is also yet to be determined how children may respond to the voice of their fathers.

Copyright © 2006. A Better Child.