Recent study found that teenagers who smoke or whose mother smoked while they were pregnant have high risk of developing hearing problems. Research found that those teenagers who were exposed to smoke had trouble focusing and repeating sounds when there was some kind of distraction.

During the study, doctors performed brain scans on teenagers and results showed that those who were exposed to smoke were more likely to have more white matter which is responsible for transmitting messages. This happens because nicotine stimulates acetylcholine, a chemical compound.

Researchers performed a test on teenagers where they were asked to recognize words while they were distracted by background noise and results showed that those teenagers who were exposed to smoke got about 75% right and those who were not exposed to smoke got 10% more. This situation is similar to those in classrooms where there’s a lot of going on and many people are talking at the same time.

This study shows that this condition may be one of the causes of pupils failing at school. It shows that those teenagers exposed to smoke may be less able to hear what’s being said in classroom.