Use a Voice Alert to Wake up Your Child During a Fire
Our kids may seem like they aren’t listening to us, but new research shows that in an emergency, mom’s voice is more likely to wake the kids up than a standard beep.
A study published in the Journal of Pediatrics compared the response of 176 sleeping children, ages 5 to 12, to standard fire and voice alarms. Mothers recorded three different versions, shouting out their child’s name, escape instructions, or both. While the inclusion of the baby’s name did not appear to increase efficiency, the mother’s voice itself did.
Mom’s voice woke up more children and prompted them to run faster than the beep. The beep woke up about 50 percent of the children, while the mother’s voice woke them about 90 percent of the time. And when they heard their mother’s voice, the children left the room in less than 30 seconds. It took them almost five minutes to leave the room with a bellowing tone.
Research conclusion: “Maternal voice signaling is significantly superior to tone signaling at home.” In this study, only the mother’s voice was tested, not the father’s, so it is not yet known how the father’s voice is formed.