Why not? After all, preferential seating is a routine recommendation?
Because the hearing sensitivity of the child, the classroom acoustic environment, and the speech of the teacher are all variables – not constants – preferential seating for acoustic advantage is ineffective. To explain, due to fluctuating middle ear systems, many otherwise typical young children do not hear well consistently. Also, noise levels in classrooms can vary tremendously throughout the day depending on such factors as hall traffic, windows open or shut, blowers of fans on or off, lights humming, overheads in use, not to mention the noise a roomful of children make. And don’t forget, the teacher is not nailed to the floor. He or she often will walk around the room when teaching. Unless all children with hearing problems (and there might be as many as 10 per classroom) can remain very close to the teacher at all times, they will not receive a consistently intelligible speech signal. Remember, noise and reverberation are not the only negative factors in classrooms. Distance from
