I do understand how you are feeling Dog.
When I was going through the whole SN thing with ds1 I really struggled as well. I've now come to a sort of acceptance, but I still have good an bad days about it all, you are bound to, he is your baby and you want life to be easy for him.
What helped me was coming to the realisation that special needs are just that - 'needs'. They are not 'who he is' he is still my lovely little boy, he just 'needs' a bit more help than others sometimes.
Did you get a hearing test done, by the way, I can't remember, sorry. Just occurred to me that school halls and other places with high ceilings tend to be echoey and make things sound weird.
The other thing is, that ds1's phobia of big screens, feature films (even on normal tvs) and television programmes he hadn't seen before was huge when he was A's age. He would completely freak and refuse to go into shops that had those infomercial tvs in because he didn't know what was going to come up on the screen and we couldn't walk through our shopping centre because he wouldn't walk past certain shops that had tvs in the window. Now he is 7 though, he can still be nervous about them, but is so much better and handles it - no more freaking out. I don't think he will ever go to the cinema, but he doesn't even notice tvs in shops anymore and he quite regularly watches new tv programmes, but won't even consider watching a film. A lot of these things tend to diminish with age, I think as their level of understanding increases.
99.9% of people who meet ds1 would never know he has SN, but when he was little he was more obviously different. My sister said to me for the first time ever this week that she was convinced he would really struggle at school and have no friends etc because of his asd tendancies, but that when she sees him now he just seems like a normal 7 year old boy. Which is exactly what he is - a normal 7 year old boy who needs a bit of extra help sometimes. He has friends, including a best friend, loves science, computers and reading, likes to run around like a demented lunatic at playtime, is doing really well academically and despite sometimes being a right pita to handle is loved by his parents and teachers alike.
Dh and I know he is 'different' and we manage his quirks and behaviours, same thing with his teachers as they too have to manage his behaviour accordingly, but other people tend not to notice.
A is a lovely bright little lad, with a Mum and Dad who adore him. Which means, he has everything going for him. It wouldn't surprise me at all if we have a conversation in a couple of years time and you tell me that he is getting along just fine.
Take heart Dog he's only a baby still and has all the time in the world. ((more hugs))