Kids Wake Better to Mother's Voice
This could be a really big deal (from Firehouse.com).
Researchers at Columbus Children's Hospital decided to study whether smoke alarms using a mother's voice calling out her child's first name would be more effective in rousing the child and allowing him or her to escape from the room.
...
Ninety-six percent of the children awoke to the alarms that used their mothers' voices. Almost
40 percent of these children did not awaken to the tone alarm.
The fact that 83 percent were able to escape from the room in time when awakened by the parent alarm compared with only 38 percent with the tone is important, because most of the childhood deaths in home fires are attributed to smoke inhalation.
If smoke detector companies are smart, they will capitalize on this study. Smoke detectors that let a parent record a wake-up message and that will play that message instead of the regular warning tone should help reduce child fatalities.
Posted April 26, 2006 09:56 AM · Link
· Technology
