"My ears hurt, Mummy"... :( Dyspraxia/over-sensitive to noise... Advice please!

[Milchardo]

I know in the grand scheme of things it's nothing, but it's got me down a little today...

I posted about this about a week or so ago as I was at a loss to know what was causing it... I was supposed to be taking my 3-year-old DD, to her friend's birthday party today. Because I can't drive (thank you, dyspraxia!) my friend, whose son's birthday it is, picked us up early so we could chat while I helped her get things ready for the party. Anyway, the little boy started making 'meaow' noises at DD and she went into complete hysterical meltdown. sad This meltdown happened several times with any noise she didn't like (TV being on, etc.,) until I decided it would be better for everyone if we just came home again because she was getting so upset - and the other party guests hadn't even arrived yet (one of their little friends has SN and shrieks quite a bit when she's excited and DD had already got really upset at even the thought of this friend being there - her mother is stressed to the max as it is and I didn't want DD adding to that stress...)

This situation with reacting badly to certain noises has been getting progressively worse over the past few weeks/months... Before it was just hot air hand-dryers, drills, lawnmowers, vaccuum cleaners, babies crying, etc., but now it seems to also include other children who aren't talking 'normally' as well...

She said the noise makes her ears hurt so I took her to the doctor last week who told me that she couldn't see anything wrong with her ears, but has referred me to see a paediatrician because she think DD might have inherited my dyspraxia and have also developed an over-sensitivity to noise (I'm over-sensitive to smells) as one of the symptoms.

The thing is, she starts nursery in September at the school and I worry that they will refuse to take her/she will be too distressed to attend because of this... I feel like it's my fault she reacts this way. sad I'm getting upset about this already... To make matters worse, it's not as if she's a quiet, introverted little girl! Apart from this reaction to noise she's a really outgoing extrovert (unlike me!)

Any advice from anyone who has been through this? I've no idea when I will hear about a peadiatric appointment...

TIA

Theres a tiny bone in the inner ear that affects both balance (dyspraxia) & pitch/volume sensitivity. My lad's gets worse during growth spurts. Look up the vestibular-auditory-visual triad to see what I'm getting at.

An occupational therapist run programme of physical excercises (look up Astronaut training by Mary Kawar) + a sound therapy such as "the Listening programme" can make a big difference . Note that the examples I've given are just that, to give you an idea of the type of therapy I'm referring to but might not be the correct programmes for your kid as it's VERY individual to each child.

That's the good news - the bad is that cos each child is so individual it really does need to be an individual programme designed by an expert clinician (some some general pead or GP etc) & these are both thin on the ground and in most areas not even available at all. on the NHS. (Most areas OT depts are for functional therapy - this approach is neurodevelopmental).

Realistically - yes you can help your child, A LOT, but it's gonna be something you'll have to save up and pay for, rather than something school or your local PCT can really do much for.

Yes, he probably is over sensitive to noise - so that certain sounds do actually hurt his ears.

There are many, many listening therapies that help with this.

I did auditory integration training at the sound learning centre with my 3 and it helped a lot. For example previously DS1 walked out of class up to 5 times a day due to noise. After AIT he stopped doing that.

AIT is very expensive though. There are lots of other ones. Some cheaper....

Alternatives are:
Listening therapy
Tomatis
Theureputic listening
Johansen

Thank you both for your thoughtful replies - I've certainly got a fair bit of research to do by the look of it... :)

Silly question time... In the meantime, would it be a good idea to buy her some sort of ear defenders until I've got a proper diagnosis? I'm beginning to dread her starting nursery now...

Ear defenders are fine.

I'm not sure you'll get a diagnosis of hypercaucus (over-sensitive hearing) on the NHS. I certainly didn't.......

The NHS audiologist took an audiogram of DD and said her hearing was fine.

The Sound Learning Centre took an audiogram of DD and showed me her over-sensitive hearing.

I think mostly the NHS won't dx it because they don't treat it.....

DS used his ear defenders to get him thru school concert rehersals - previous to that he hadn't used them for 4-5 months. At one point he needed them for large portions of the day. Get em, life's too short for a child to be needlessly miserable. He's taking them on a school trip next week, odds are he won't need em.

A key question is - does she have motor-co-ordination issues like you, or JUST sound sensitivity?

I do strongly reccomend taking the time to get her properly assessed, by someone who knows about the RANGE of therapies available; as depending on the root cause & severity of the difficulties a therapy that can be the savior of one child can make anothers issues infinately worse.

The last thing you want to do is fork out your hard-earned for something that amplifies her problems. AIT wouldn't help my son in the slightest, but I've met other children whose lives have been totally transformed by it. The protocol we are using for my lad would be no help at all to some children.

Thank you. To be honest, I'm not sure is she has the motor coordination problems that I do or not... She's certainly less confident about going on things like bouncy castles, swings, slides, etc., than any of her friends and her balance isn't all that good. My problems are more to do with gross motor skills - for the most part my fine motor skills are reasonably ok...

She struggles with cutlery, but then she's didn't turn 3 until the end of March - and as an only child, I don't have other children to gauge her development against. She was 16 months old before she walked and is only just potty training now.

However, her speech is far beyond what you'd expect for a child of her age (according to a pre-school assessor friend of mine she's say she's at age 5 standard) and she's very good with anything technical (think laptop/iphone, etc!) Added to this she's very tall (I'm 6 foot and DP is 6' 2") so when people see and talk to her, they expect so much more from her than they would an average-sized 3-year-old!

In-laws are convinced there's nothing wrong with her... I don't really know what to this, but this behaviour/reaction definitely isn't 'normal'...

this = think!