My 2.5 year old absolutely must stop screaming

[sarahtar]

She has been a screamer since, um, birth. She screams for fun. She screams when angry. Her first instinct when she needs or wants something is to scream. She screams to get attention. She screams when she's having fun. She screams all. the. time.

I seriously can't handle it any more. When she was 1 or so, we figured she would outgrow the screaming as she developed new vocabulary, and was better able to express herself. We've tried numerous ways of gently encouraging her to use a better voice, including reminding her every time she screams to use a quieter voice, modeling use of a quieter voice, etc. She WILL ask for things nicely in a regular voice without screaming if reminded, but not on her own typically. Nobody else in the house screams.

At 2.5, she has a really good vocabulary and doesn't have trouble making herself understood. Yet she still screams. constantly. I seriously don't know what to do.

[hakeber]

Maybe it's a sensory thing.  Maybe she can't hear herself, or she enjoys the sensation of screaming and hearing herself scream?

Maybe she could have a special screaming place?  Egg cartons can help to sound proof a small room if the walls are lined with them. 

I fear that DD will be a screamer.  I seriously have no patience for it.  My niece is a screamer too and it makes me really not like to be around her much.  I finally got her to scream into pillows and stuffies instead of my ear when she is around me, or go outside to scream.  That is what we are working on with DD, finding ways for her to be able to scream for her own catharsis, but also give me the sanity of not having bleeding eardrums.

It is me or is the pitch of a girl child's scream/screech/squeal/squeak just so much more painful than a boy's.  I have never met any boys that make my head like this after shrieking.  I can't even think with that noise.