Anyone had any success trying to deal with over-sensitive hearing????

[Blossomhill]

Dd - 6 1/2 yrs and vague dx of language disorder/poss AS has always held her hands over her ears and been sensitive to noise.

Well it is now becoming a huge problem as it is affecting every aspect of her life. She is refusing to go out at playtime because of "those noisy children give me a headache" and had to be taken out of rehearsel for the easter play for screaming. When I asked her why she said again "it was too noisy".

Is there any way to de-sensitise hearing? It really is becoming such a problem. I can't even breathe without dd saying "mum, stop breathing, it's too noisy".

[Piffle]

ahhh bloss, my dd too
It is called auditory defensiveness and yes you can de condition them
Although apparently they learn the more they are exposed.
I dread what dd is going to be like in a big class at school (she is 3 now)
It is worth seeking advise from an Occupational therapist I am told... We're asking for a referral this thursday when we see our paed for a review.

[chipmonkey]

My ds1 is a bit like this. We did bring him to an OT and he was given a programme to do involving wearing headphones playing classical music while doing a task for 30min. He did improve somewhat but is still very distractable in school. He is very bright but always underperforms

[Blossomhill]

Piffle - dd has been referred but there is a 2 yr waiting list for OT

Chipmonkey - that sounds good. Does your ds have any sn?

[hellsbellsdownunder]

over sensitive hearing was one of ds's major problems as a child. One day aged about 8 he came home from school and tried to tell me about some music he had heard at school. It turned out he had heard some Mozart music - and he was able to communicate to me that he really wanted to hear more of this. I immediately went and bought some Mozart CDs that ds then played every night for several months. Further research on the internet revealed that there is such a thing as the 'Mozart effect' - and that this music has been used to great effect in helping children with over-sensitive hearing. I still can't believe the extraordinary effect it had on ds.
Ds is now 18 and you would not ever guess now that he ever had the problems he had as a child. Although never officially diagnosed I know he had a wide variety of characteristics of ASD.
Sorry to be so rambling but I just feel extremely passionate about this.

[hellsbellsdownunder]

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[Blossomhill]

hellsbells - thanks that's very interesting. i will look into that.

also very interested in your ds. was he ever assessed by any pros when he was younger? do you feel he has outgrown a lot of the asd behaviours?

hope you don't mind me asking but genuinally interested :)

[hellsbellsdownunder]

The only professional assessment he ever had was a morning with an educational pyschologist. She didn't disagree with my assessment of ASD but she was very reluctant to agree without a lot of further testing. The thing that really struck me was that she hinted that a positive diagnosis might not be in ds's best interests (although it would have brought huge peace of mind to me).

I think we were very fortunate - we had the funds to send ds to prep school and I've got to say his teachers there worked miracles. Ds spent a lot of time with one particular teacher on a one-to-one basis. But ALL his teachers seemed to tune into his wave-length and built on his strengths and weaknesses.
For a long time he was obsessed with learning lists of capital cities of countries. He would fill page after page with lists. His teachers broadened his interests so that he then became interested in atlases and then with history and then with languages. He is now a very knowledgable A level student studying History, French and German and for the last 2 years has studied Russian as a hobby. He wants to study Russian at uinversity!

To some extent he I think he 'outgrew' his ASD. I don't know if this is something that is widely recognised as possible.

[Jodee]

Glad I found this thread, I will read with interest. This seems to be something ds (6) has, so thanks piffle for putting a name to it. How are they desensitised?
DS has has the Ed. Psych. in recently to observe him, he is distracted so easily, a real fidget when it's sitting on the carpet time (he now sits on a beanbag), obsessed with star wars and the EP had noticed he put his hands over his ears a lot of the time. We already knew he didn't particularly like loud noises, but it seemed to be when the teacher was instructing them, like he couldn't take in all the info, it was too much. sorry for hogging the thread!

[Jodee]

forgot to say he is having speech and lang therapy as well, so maybe a connection there.

[hellsbellsdownunder]

Ds especially hated the school bell, anything electrical in the house ie hoover, hairdryer, dishwasher, rain drops (think he heard this like gunfire), water draining away down pipes, and on one very odd occasion I suspected he could hear his blood pumping round his body!
It was definitely the Mozart music that 'desensitized' his hearing.

[chipmonkey]

Blossomhill, he doesn't have SN and was always very obvioulsy bright, his teacher last year thought he fell into the "talented" category but he only does well in tests if put into a room on his own to do them! Very frustrating! There is a classroom assistant in the class assigned to a child who does have SN but she spends more time standing over my ds making him work!

[Blossomhill]

chipmonkey - yes my dd is very bright too. Emotionally she is way behind though.

[ohmeohmy]

Hi,
Not sure if this any use but my son aged 4 has sensitive hearing, particularly to certain nursery rhymes, theme tunes, whistles etc. He has also been diagnosed with sensory integration dysfunction which I beleive really is right and learning about it has really helped me understand how the world is to him. Several good books available on amazon - explains a lot of his behaviour (and I don't mean behavioural problems - just how things are for him and how he responds). It's difficult finding a way round is particular sensitivities as they change but he has been able to become accustomed to some things he found painful to hea rbefore.

OTs are trained - or sould be - to deal with this.

[LazyWoman]

Hi,

Just wanted to let you know about "The Listening Programme" (Google it) which I do with my two ASD children. Basically, it is specially arranged classical music based on Tomatis auditory integration therapy, which your children have to listen to through headphones. You have to see an authorised provider first who will tailor a programme for you. It has really helped with my children's S&L and it should also help with oversensitive hearing etc. Definitely worth a look.

[newscot]

Lazywoman, interested in your reply about the Listening Program. I have read about this and wondered if it might be of use to my DD(5) with HFA (very mild). She sometimes has difficulty tuning in to what is important in a conversation as she over processes and takes in everything. In short, she needs to develop her listening skills (if possible) Would you say the program helped your children in that way?

[chipmonkey]

lazywoman, thats what my ds did, I just didn't explain it very well!

[Dizzymama]

This may be completely beside the point but I have extremely sensitive hearing and was sent to an auditory unit at the local hospital where I was fitted with 'maskers', basically hearing aids that give off white noise. They really helped me filter out what I was supposed to be hearing as half my problem was focussing on background noise instead of e.g. a person talking. I teach at a primary school and have often had conversations with some of the children on the Aspergers and Autism spectrum and some with ADHD, they have described a similar situation to the one I found myself in. Simply they say that noises such as the bell just overload their ears as they are already too busy trying to sort out which of the many noises they hear is the correct one to concentrate on. I also agree with the Mozart, this really works well for one of our children.

[chipmonkey]

Dizzymama, where did you have that done?

[coppertop]

Ds1, ds2 and dh all have hypersensitive hearing.

Dh copes with noise at work (open-plan office) by listening to music through earphones. Even something very quiet and with just one earphone in seems to help.

The classical music idea is very interesting. Ds1 loves it and even has his own little radio tuned in to Classic FM. His hearing is still very sensitive but he seems to be able to cope with everyday noises much better than he used to.

I've heard good things about auditory integration programmes but they seem to either work well for a particular child or not at all. Some just seem to be more suited to it than others.

[LazyWoman]

Hi Newscot - sorry I only just got back to you.

Yes, from what I understand about The Listening Programme, it could help your daughter "tune in" better. It has definitely helped my DS's (10) language acquisition and he now speaks more clearly too. I also think that it has helped my DD (11) who is extremely sensitive to loud noises - balloons, party poppers etc. and who would always cover her ears at parties. She seems to have aclimatised to these noises - whether this is just natural progress I don't know. I took the view that there was nothing to lose by trying this programme and my kids really look forward to their "sessions".

On a practical level, you need a very good quality CD player and headphones - the TLP providers will tell you what is suitable. I personally use the "Classic Kit" (8 CDs) plus 2 Sensory Integration CDs. There are also other add on CDs which may be more suitable for your DD. Each "cycle" takes aprox 8-12 weeks - I've just finished my 3rd one.

The whole set up costs around £500 which includes the initial Authorised Provider consultation. This is very good value when compared to other auditory integration therapies. However, if you're strapped for cash, like moi, then it's worth approaching a charity like Cerebra for funding. I personally got funding from another local charity on the basis that the whole kit could be used by another child.

In summary, I think it is well worth trying. Hope this helps - good luck.

[newscot]

Lazywoman (though you can't be!!!) thanks for getting back with that info. I will definately look into it more.

[rainmum]

We refered our 10 year old son last year to Educ Child Pysc, who referred him onto the AS clinic we are still waiting for diag, we only have report saying he has some aspects of AS. We are now discovering problems such as hearing ie the noise pencils make on paper but pens are ok and people chewing their food. Many Thanks will try the classical music.