Sensitivity to emotions in music?

[allaboutme]

Hi, My DS is 4.5yo and has mild ASD/Aspergers. He is not very aware of other peoples emotions and doesnt react to somebody crying/looking upset much BUT he is VERY sensitive to music and if a song sounds even slightly sad, or he hears sad music on the TV he can get quite upset and says he doesnt like the sad music.
He cries at a part in his favourite DVD (Trapdoor!) when one monster leaves as the music is very sad that is playing in the background. I dont think he would be affected at all by the monster leaving if it wasnt for the music highlighting that the moment is supposed to be sad...
Has anyone else experienced this?

DD1 gets very distressed with 'atmospheric' music.

DS 2.9 does too, it's the only thing that makes him properly burst into tears rather than yelling / shrieking etc

DS1 (13) has always been very emotional when he hears a ballad! He sobs as if the world is going to end and asks for hugs (which he usually hates). He has SLD with ASD or a lot of ASD tendancies depending on which professional you talk to.

ds1 is the same (severe ASD). Some music used to make him shake when he was little!

MY DS does that too, he can't watch trapdoor- too scary. As was Cars, Lazy town and Aristocats... after that I kind of gave up and we stick with Charlie and Lola, mr Men and tractor ted. Frustrating isn;t it.

We think Ds is NT,however he's very susceptible to "scary" Music and it took him a long time to be brave about hand dryers, vacuum cleaners and other fan noises.He doesn't like DH playing penny whistle but is Ok with recorder& trumpet.. I think its the pitch. There are def some frequency's that boy is not comfortable with.

DS1 (8) is dyspraxic - he used to be exactly like this when younger. When he was in Reception I was called in to take him home - they thought he was ill, but it was because they had just been singing a song about Billy the Bee who had no friends! He's better now because he understands his response to it, iyswim, but there are still certain types of music he dislikes intensely.

He had homework last week to make some boring sentences more interesting. He turned 'the man walked up the hill' into ' Ryan walked slowly and sadly up the hill, leaving his home behind him' - then rubbed the whole thing out saying he couldn't write that as it was too sad and it made him feel unhappy to look at it!

Allaboutme, I was gobsmacked when I read your post. Ds1 (verbal dx of Aspgergers) gets really distressed at exactly the same scene on the TrapDoor DVD. Its the one where Boney leaves the castle isn't it? He gets really upset and we have to switch it off before the music starts. As you say, if the sound was off and he'd never heard it and made the connection with it being a sad event, I don't think it would bother him.

He's always been sensitive to music. When he was about 20 months old, we were shopping with him in the pushchair and a busker was playing some very atmospheric and emotional violin music in the town square. He sobbed and sobbed and all we could get out of him was 'sad music, no, no, no, sad music'. We had to get him away from there sharpish because he got so distressed.

He is now nearly 8 and although he has learned to understand that I am upset if he sees me crying and will come and try to comfort me, and he understands that babies cry because they need comfort (he has a 1 year old sister that he idolises) he can't generalise that to understand that all people that cry are upset or sad.

I think the music provokes the emotional response in them and it comes as a shock because, not being able to read the social and body language type cues of other people, they are not used to experiencing spontaneous empathic emotions. (Its difficult for them, but somehow I find it comforting, as it reminds me that the empathy is there in there iyswim.)

I don't get so much reaction to haring music from my DSs, but around the age of 2-3, they have both had a tendency to express their emotions with singing and humming. DS2 is almost 4 and still does it. Most of his humming is happy, happy humming, but the tone really changes when he's tired or frustrated with something. DS1's humming used to get downright angry sounding if he was upset about something. He also went through a long phase of imitating and using the "wah wah wah" trumpet sound so often used to signify something was wrong!

DS has strong responses to some music. For instance last october we went to a theme park during the halloween season. When we went into the restaurant to grab a bite , he screamed the place down, had tears, he was really upset because of the background spooky music that was playing. We simply couldn't reason with him and had to leave the restaurant as it was turning into a meltdown. So we ate outside in the cold like lepers...

Moosemama - DS1 is quite uncomfortable with feeling strong emotions and as a result very rarely cries or gets angry. He has an amazing ability to control himself, which other adults think is great because he's so well behaved. I'm sometimes not so sure...