Parents Voice Better Than Smoke Detector

It appears that the sound emitted from traditional fire alarms is not effective at awakening children from deep sleep. Fortunately, a study published in Pediatrics, shows that alarms with a personalized message, recorded from a child?s own mother?s voice, dramatically improved the effectiveness of smoke alarms. To study the effect of personalized smoke alarms, 24 children participated in a study in which their awakening was measured in response to a number of audible tones. When exposed to a smoke alarm that contained their mother?s voice, 23 of the 24 children awoke. On average, these children were able to wakeup within 20 seconds of the alarm sounding, and 20 of them were able to escape the house via a preplanned route within 5 minutes of the alarm sounding. In contrast, only nine children were awoken by a 100-decibel tone alarm. On average, these children were able to wakeup within 3 minutes of the alarm sounding, and only 9 of them were able to escape within 5 minutes. When the children who were non-responsive to the tonal alarm were exposed to their parents? voice alarm they awoke within seconds. It should be noted that the researchers are unable to suggest which, if any currently marketed alarm system, would match the research systems, as those tested sounded at very high volumes. Also, the researchers are unsure if the high success rate of voice alarms was due to the mother?s voice, or the act of calling the child's name in the recorded message.