Hearing At 10 Times The Normal Volume!
She had a hearing test and the results indicated she was hearing at 10 times normal volume! A whisper was easy to hear and noises were intolerable. Some high pitched sounds were excruciating. This type of sensory issue is not uncommon among children with autism. How difficult would it be to be actively involved in an inclusive school environment with peers, doing a hands on activity if you needed your hands to cover your ears to muffle intolerably loud sound?
It is possible to have hearing aids made to filter out sound; the reverse of what we normally use hearing aids for. This is certainly a more acceptable way to block loud noise than heavy duty headphones. The latter, worn over long periods or 24/7 can cause ear infections. They also set your child up for kids to make fun of them.
There is no doubt that the hearing aids would be much more expensive………………..but imagine what you would be willing to pay if everyday sounds were 10 times the volume all the time?
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savant syndrome!
i think it’s the coolest thing ever.. like the man who can mold any animal with clay just by looking at the animal once.. or the boy that can play any song on the piano after hearing it only once.. or the boy that can draw anything once he sees the image for the first time
this girl has incredible hearing but it’s sad how this hurts her :[
I’d go to some special forces 😀 :O
ouch, that must be tough 😐
@the_kcar – The child I knew ‘appeared’ to be dealing with a sound volume issue and the sounds emitted by lights and electronics. I did not have direct contact with the audiologist myself but they felt that lowering the volume would help. There was a sound from the TV that was very troublesome except when she was very, very focused only on watching the TV. I’d try ear plugs again with your son, maybe now that he would understand the purpose. You could get him doing some research on them first………….good luck
There are times when my son seems to take in all the sounds around him, but not find himself able to hear what one person is saying. I’ve also experienced [though not as much as my son with autism] that environmental noise would occlude the ability to hear what is going on around me.
If there were a device that could filter out unnecessary noise, so that a person could focus on singular threads of conversation, etc. – that would be an item worth investing in. Problem is: there are times when the simple ringing tones in fluorescent lighting, combined with the sounds of other activity around my son seems to distract him from being able to hear and properly react to direction and/or inquiry. As he is high-functioning, intelligent, and a teen, much of his frustration seems to be taken out as him being, “teen rebellious”, rather than being understood, at least partially, as a manifestation that he is diagnosed moderately autistic.
It does get difficult, indeed….and ear plugs seemed to bother the living daylights out of him when he was younger; I wonder if it is possible to try them again, now that he is a teen? Winchester makes these kinds that have baffles in them, to muffle excess noise, but to allow hearing when at a lower decibel.
@bitterbittenrockinblonde22@xanga – That made me smile. Clever.
This reminds me of a story I heard in the news a while ago….I might have been 17. An autistic man lived next door to some neighbors who would party and play their music loudly. He was really sensitive to the noise——he said it felt like rape!
——and he wasn’t very communicative, so what he did was, he set up a sound system which was louder than his neighbors with a CD of birds squawking and crowing to get his neighbors to be quiet. 
I would mortgage my house for a device that would help my son deal with ANY issue causing him pain or suffering. It would be wonderful if there were a testing facility for devices that are pricy so that parents won’t spend thousands of $$$ on items their children will never use. Our son’s neurologist at UCSD Medical Center, Doris Trauner MD, thinks the ear plugging is because of anxiety and not hearing issues. She may be right because sometimes our son will put his ear right up to a speaker and turn up the volume on the stereo. Then there are times he will say “sing” so we sing together and then there are times he says “don’t sing” and I think, man am I that awful. 🙂
It’s tough when the verbal skills are very limited. So you observe, stay in tune and try, try and try again hoping and praying you are doing the right thing and making a posative difference in your child’s life.