Why Gender Matters: Differences in Hearing.
Sixteen months after their birth baby girls usually have about 100 words in their vocabulary repertoire. Boys on the other hand, have only 40. Why this gap? What causes this difference? These gender differences in language acquisition have been expressed, tested and analyzed through a battery of tests performed by renowned scientists. Due to continuous research, scientists have discovered that there are innate anatomical differences in brain tissue between the genders. These divergences in the brain’s configuration are evidently seen while observing differences not only present in language but also, marked variations in emotion, education and cognitive expressions between the sexes. In his book Why Gender Matters, Dr. Leonard Sax has brought to our attention that these genetically programmed divergence need to be genuinely taken into consideration while educating young boys and girls. The focus of this paper will be based upon these unprecedented results depicting differences in the hearing apparatus of girls and boys and how these affect their educational experience.
Do females have a superior hearing ability? In the late 1980 graduate students from Florida State University conducted an experiment where they tested the effect of soothing music therapy on premature babies. Some researches theorized that playing soft music in a baby’s crib would relax the baby, therefore increase the baby’s appetite so the baby would grow faster. Results suggested that babies who heard the music left the hospital on average 5 days earlier than babies who didn’t hear the music (Sax, 2006). When looking at the results based upon gender, premature baby girls who were part of the experimental group left the hospital on average 9 ½ days earlier than the premature baby girls who were not exposed to the soothing music. On the contrary, both premature baby boys in the experimental and control groups had no difference whatsoever in their discharge dates (Sax, 2006). What caused this difference? Other experiments have been done to test the validity of these results and each come to the same conclusion. For that reason, Leonard Sax (2006) claims that “girls’ hearing [is] substantially more sensitive than boys’” (p.17). Therefore, these premature baby boys could not hear the music as well as the girls hence its soothing composure did not have any effect on the boys. More over, Leonard Sax (2006) stated that girls hearing is enhanced “especially in the 1,000 – 4,000 hz range, which is so important for speech discrimination” (p.17). Speech discrimination is substantially important in these boys and girls as they attend an academic setting.
Gender differences in hearing affect the overall performance of students inside a classroom. As previously informed, girls hear considerably better at lower frequencies than boys do. Consequently, girls are distracted by noise levels “about ten times softer than noise levels boys [would] find distracting” (p.18). Taping pens, desks, or the subtle noise of a bird would easily distract any girl from any educational situation. Girls need to be in a serene, noise-free environment in order to successfully achieve the desired focus inside a classroom. Why does it seem then, that boys are the one easily distracted in an educational setting compared to girls? The teacher’s voice level – specially the one of a female teacher - becomes a huge factor that interferes directly with the boy’s learning environment. According to the female teacher, she could be speaking in a normal voice tone. The girls inside her classroom hear her perfectly well, while the boys have difficulty listening to what the teacher is saying because for them, she is speaking in a soft tone. If it were a male teacher inside the classroom the opposite would occur. Girls would believe the male teacher is screaming at them while the boys would hear him in an adequate manner. In the scenario where the female teacher is the educator the boys would be easily driven to distraction because they aren’t as involved in the classroom discussion as the female teacher might think (Sax, 2006).
I vehemently believe these findings to be imperative to any educator’s knowledge. Children are complex, dynamic, constantly changing and directly affected by their surroundings that in order to reach every child each day the educator must know, understand, and detect their diverse realities. One of the best learning environments occurs when children feel safe, understood and respected. In turn, they become motivated and open to learning the information presented by the current educator. From my personal experience, when this scenario takes place the students are prone to accepting the challenges provided by the professor and therefore easily motivated to succeed. Understanding the biological implications and differences in each gender and applying simple theories - as girls hearing better than boys - can be of great assistance in the overall dynamic of the classroom. Now, why does a 16-month-old baby girl have 60 more words in her vocabulary repertoire compare to baby boys? Simply because girls hear better than boys.
Reference:
Sax, L. (2006). Why gender matters: what parents and teachers need to know about the emerging science of sex differences. New York, NY: Broadway.
