Noise

[Stephanie]

My son who is 6 and half seems to be struggling with noise moreso than ever. He never used to mind crowded places, or noisy places.

 

I notice now when I take him anyway he is shouting "why are these people all talking" or "make them shut up" and sometimes holding his hands over his ears or pulling wincing facial expressions. We went to McDonalds and the cinema today and he tolerated them really well but I could tell he was a bit uncomfortable.

 

I just wondered why this is happening now when it never bothered him all that much before.

 

It just seems to be crowded places or constant noises that bother him ... he is fine with fireworks etc.

[opheila]

My son suffers terrible with high pitch noises and any electrical noise such as hoovers hairdryers we cannot ever have them on in the house when he is in.

His pead thinks he has a condition called hyperacusis and gave me information about it

One of the reasons he has his buggy is if the noise in the street gets to much or a high pitch noise kicks in some where he will go into totally melt down this has caused him to harm himself by banging his head of his pushchair hit himself and lash out

it might be worth asking for a hearing test but i am not sure if this sort of condition will show up in a hearing test

 

opheila

[spectrummum]

hi

i am shell mum of 6

one with autism

one with aspergeres

one with traits one with lbd

o also have AS

many children have sensory problems your child seems to be have most problems with auditory perception

unless they can see the noise they will fear it

[LizK]

Adam is hypersensitive to noise, it has become far more apparent in the last 12-18mths though I think it's always been there but he's either not been able to tell or not crossed his mind. From what I've read noise hypersensitivity can be either due to that primarily or it can be secondary to another sensory hypersensitivity ie if they are oversensitive to visual stimuli the brain spends so much effort dealing with that it can't process auditory stimula and the person hence founds loud sounds distressing.

 

Adam struggles with unexpected loud noises like whistles, shouting, thunder or fireworks. It seems to physically hurt him and he finds them distressing. Constant loud background noise does not distress him so much but he gets sensory overloaded as he can't filter it and that then causes difficulties. All to do with auditory processing and that sounds like what could be your son's problem too. The best thing we ever did was by him ear defenders which he wears in noisy situations and which has enabled him to take part and enjoy activities his noise sensitivity would otherwise have made impossible He is very chewy and if he has his chewy stick to chomp on constant background noise seems to bother him less too

 

HTH

 

Lx

[allie]

it might be worth asking for a hearing test but i am not sure if this sort of condition will show up in a hearing test

 

My son has had a hearing test, because he also is sensitive to load noises, but all the tests came back saying his hearing was fine. It also ended up being an added stress because he got so anxious going into the sound box and having to put things in his ears that he ended up having a meltdown. His pead said that it wouldn't show up that he's sensitive, its just one of the ASD traits.

 

 

The best thing we ever did was by him ear defenders which he wears in noisy situations

We've just bought C an MP3 player for his birthday, he loves it, will wear it when we go out and about - I assume because it blocks out everything else. I've also found that if he is about to start a meltdown, and I pick up the signs earlier enough, if I put his music on for him, it relaxes him. which is always a good thing.

[jb1964]

Hi,

 

My daughter (14) has always suffered from this - various things she finds very difficult and the more anxious/stressed she is the worse it becomes. If she's deeply immersed in something she does cope slightly better although will still keep on about it - and the longer it goes on the more anxious she gets.

 

As she's got older she has been able to describe that sometimes it's because she cannot actually hear what the noise is, where it's coming from etc. For instance someone talking quietly while she's watching tv will really stress her out because she cannot block it out - whispering, buzzing or humming noises have the same affect.

 

She kept mentioning that she hated walking past the wall outside because the noise was unbearable - we didn't have a clue what she meant because we couldn't hear anything - until one day after her getting anxious about it hubbie put his ear against the wall - and because the combi boiler is the other side there was a very distant humming kind of noise.

 

Take care,

Jb

[aro]

I've just had a hearing test for dd with a great audiologist in our town. DD covers her ears constantly too but the test showed normal hearing for a child (way better than adult over 30!) and she showed no distress at any frequency. He said it is a higher brain function problem where she can't filter out sounds. So in the classroom (eg) they need to try and ensure any unneccessary noises are turned off (ie, fans, tv's etc) and that she sits right infront of the noise (teacher speaking) that sheneeds to attend to. Very helpful and makes sense as she has a dx of sensory modulation disorder.

Also said this might be why she is waking at night, when a car goes past our ears hear it but our brains have learn to ignore it/ tune it out. Her's doesn't so she wakes up Sadly the ear plugs he recommended didn't fit as the smallest size was age 11 and she's 5!

 

A x

[Lynden]

We had a lot of problems with Logan being sensitive to noise but it has greatly reduced since we had audio integration therapy earlier in the year. He still has issues with some noises but its much better generally.

 

Lynne x

[Ian Jordan]

auditory processing disorders are common in ASD. They are treatable using sound or vision stimulus modification.