sensory issues - noise

[purslaine]

This may be the wrong place to post...mods,. move if need be.

My 12 yr old has sensory issues - particularly around noise.  Naturally (or is it Murphy's Law???) my 8 yr old is extremely loud.   Neither are doing it on purpose - the 8 yr old is an active child - she bounces, sings, speaks loud...you get it.  My 12 yr old hates it - to the point where she is extremely snappy and angry.  
 

About 10 minjutes ago the 8 yr old made some sort of noise in the living room, and DD 12, told her to "be quiet!" from the kitchen.  This type of stuff happens all.the.time.

I try and create reasonable boundaries - if DD 12 is in the room - no coming into the room and making noise.  Likewise, if the 8 yr old is in the room singing, no coming in and complaining.  Etc, Etc.

I have to get off (more later if need be!)  but the bottom line question is:

Do you ask siblings to change their behaviour for a sensory sensitive child?  Or do you somehow teach the sensory sensitive child to cope with a noisy world - and how?

FWIW, ear plugs do not work.  The 12 yr old will not wear them - and she is not interested in noise reducing earphones, either.  Her goal is that her sister and the rest of the world (but  particularly her sister ) be quiet.

[OTMomma]

As an OT I recently worked with a child that was very sensitive to noise, and doing sensory integration therapy with the Wilbarger protocol actually helped the child to be less sensitive about noise and smells and various problems he was having. So I would look into OT as a possible solution.

My kids have been making each other nuts lately and I may start brushing them all just to see what happens!

[rainbringer]

My dd has always been super noise sensitive.  Since I started giving her magnesium, this is almost completely gone.  She even went to the fireworks this year and had a great time.  The sensitivity didn't go away immediately, but after a month or two.

[Emmeline II]

Originally Posted by kathymuggle 

This may be the wrong place to post...mods,. move if need be.

My 12 yr old has sensory issues - particularly around noise.  Naturally (or is it Murphy's Law???) my 8 yr old is extremely loud.   Neither are doing it on purpose - the 8 yr old is an active child - she bounces, sings, speaks loud...you get it.  My 12 yr old hates it - to the point where she is extremely snappy and angry.  
 

I have to get off (more later if need be!)  but the bottom line question is:

Do you ask siblings to change their behaviour for a sensory sensitive child?  Or do you somehow teach the sensory sensitive child to cope with a noisy world - and how?

FWIW, ear plugs do not work.  The 12 yr old will not wear them - and she is not interested in noise reducing earphones, either.  Her goal is that her sister and the rest of the world (but  particularly her sister ) be quiet.

I have a sensory sensitive 7yo boy and a loud and pesky (to ds) 5yo girl.

The noise can get to me too. Sometimes we have quiet breaks to "rest our heads," where we turn off the TV/computer and ds has to wear his headphones while playing his PSP.

Generally, I try to balance things. It is not reasonable to be to have the house quiet ALL the time. Sometimes I recommend ds go elsewhere if he wants quiet, or dd if she wants to be loud or sing. Sometimes I tell ds (who is yelling at dd to be quiet) that it is not reasonable for dd to be quiet at this moment, and that he can wear his noise dampening ear phones or his squishy ear plugs. Sure, he may choose not to wear them but he doesn't then get to yell at dd for making noise.

He did see an OT who did a listening program to help him deal with the noise sensitivity and that seemed to help.

[purslaine]

Thanks,  OK.  OT and magnesium.  

[FarmerBeth]

I have three kids, one very noise sensitive, one not but very quiet,  my youngest is extremely noisy.  He basically boom boxes during all of his imaginative play.  I try to make sure that each child has a "quiet " place that they can go to that the others aren't allowed to barge in on.  We also have a designated busy part of the house where some noise on a rainy day is fine.  We are in a very old, but large farmhouse, so I realize our situation is more ideal than most people's as the old style houses have many small, but separate rooms. However, if you don't have this kind of house, you might still be able to arrange separate areas, perhaps?  Also, incorporating soft surfaces (rugs, wall hangings, blanket over the doorway, etc), can reduce to noise emanating from a designated "noisy" room.

[purslaine]

Actually - we do live in a decent size house and DD12 has her own room.  She does have places to escape the noise.  Her point is she should not have to leave as she is not the one making the noise.  My belief is some noise is inevitable, and it is more realistic to learn to go somewhere for downtime than expect the world to change for your sensory issues.  

I am going to rebuy the earplugs - I know she does not like them, but it might be nice in some circumstances to offer her some choices - go elsewhere or put on the earplugs.  Standing here being witchy over noise is not acceptable.

I am also going to ramp up on asking the younger DD to tone it down.  Not all the time, but a bit more often.

I am going to try and talk to them when everyone is calm and see if we can set some ground rules.

[purslaine]

bump...

New question.  I was talking on another thread about DD's anxiety issues.  Do anxiety issues and sensory issues go together, in your opinion?

TIA!

Kathy

[Emmeline II]

Quote:Originally Posted by kathymuggle 
New question.  I was talking on another thread about DD's anxiety issues.  Do anxiety issues and sensory issues go together, in your opinion?

Well, people frequently have both...

[karne]

I think that's a really complex question, but IMO, it's not unusual for a child to have co-morbid dx.  If your dd's sensory issues are not addressed to the degree that she can function comfortably in her life, that could certainly lead to some anxiety.  Or, it could be possible to be living with a degree of anxiety that heightens/sharpens the experience of sensory issues.  I'm thinking of the level of anxiety that can make one feel as though all of their senses are heightened and certain sensory issues feel like they are on overload.

I know that for one of my kids,mild anxiety (in this case, situational, around writing), makes him look more "sensory" than would otherwise be the case.

[Linda on the move]

My DD has extreme noise sensitivity, and she has her own room, noise cancelling ear phones, and an iPod. An mp3 player of some sort and an iTunes card to go along with the noise cancelling head phones might make them much more palatable to your DD.

but part of the problem right now is that she is 12 and thinks the world should revolve around her. I, personally, thinking that caving into that will cause problems for a kid through out their life. The world doesn't revolve around her, and it isn't reasonable for other kids in your family to be forced to tiptoe around her while she refuses to do things that will help her.

My DD has 3 choices -- put on her headphones, go to her room, or suck it up and stop whinning.

I know it sounds harsh, and it's not what I would say if you were talking about a 3 year old, but she's old enough now to learn how to deal with her sensitivities.

(We plan many things, including family vacations, around what works for my Dd. I don't have a heart of stone. But this an area where she can learn to deal)

(DD also has a social anxiety disorder)

[purslaine]

Originally Posted by Emmeline II 

Well, people frequently have both...

Well, I do not doubt that sensory issues often cause anxiety.  What I was wondering if two unrelated issues could go together.  Example - DD has sensory issues - the biggest one is noise.  She also certain fears - fish and going upstairs at night by herself.  Fish and sensory are unrelated.  However I do wonder if :

-people with sensory issues are more likely to have anxiety issues that are separate from their sensory issue

-sensory issues or anxiety issues affect the other in general, and getting one under control may help the other, even if they seem unrelated (fish anxiety and noise hatred)

[FarmerBeth]

DS has pretty intense sensory issues around noise, and also a need for weight (heavy blankets or clothing, time immersed in water).  I find he has this kind of general anxiety when his sensory needs aren't attended to.  What he says the anxiety is about changes constantly, but it's sort of ever present and he comes across as a combo of anxious and annoyed.  He seems to have a lot less of this generalized sort of anxiety when his sensory needs are attended to.  His major anxiety issues with performance or unstructured social situations seem to be more independent of the sensory stuff.  I think that even people without sensory issues tend to feel both edgier and more anxious if they are getting more stimulation than their normal comfort level, so it would stand to reason that people with more intense sensory issues would have this correlation more so (right now my husband is playing a rather noisy computer game and I'm experiencing it!).

I also think that both anxiety and sensory issues are something that improve with gradual increased exposure, so outside of having a quiet place that is all his to go to when he needs it, I don't really reduce the household noise level with our son.  In fact, because he likes baking and helping with farm work, we've been using it as an opportunity to expose him to using noisy tools like beaters and power drills.  No one should have to deal with noise all the time, but dealing with it sometimes is necessary.  Likewise, I make myself deal with shopping in Walmart sometimes even though I get anxious about crowds and parking and feel awful around the overhead florescent lights and the general noise because I know if I don't due this every so often, I'll feel more anxious about it later.  Some exposure makes for better coping skills with both problems as long as there is a quiet space to retreat to in between.

[Linda on the move]

Originally Posted by kathymuggle 

-sensory issues or anxiety issues affect the other in general, and getting one under control may help the other, even if they seem unrelated (fish anxiety and noise hatred)

I think that the way a problem displays at different ages and stages can be different. When my DD was a toddler, it looked totally like sensory issues. Now as a teen, it looks more like just anxiety (partly because we deal with the sensory issues so they really aren't much of an issue, and partly because they aren't as extreme as they used to be). The kind of social anxiety that my DD has displayed that earned her a whole new label really wasn't possible for her when she was really little.

I also think there is a lot of overlap between the two -- anxiety makes the sensory stuff worse, sensory stuff makes the anxiety worse. Therefore, helping one *can sometimes* help the other.

With both my kids 12 was a difficult age. Puberty complicates everything because you throw hormones into the mix. There are children with special needs who experience extreme anxiety for a few years, but then it passes as their bodies settle down. Depression is also common among special needs kids during this stage of life.

[newsolarmomma2]

Your son may have hyperacusis, and if he does, it is truly miserable, the rage and anxiety due to sound is real. There are 4 types of sound sensitivities, I have 4S/misophonia, which is a hatred for certain sounds, like chewing. Weird, but true! It has made me miserable since I was 5, and was made worse because people are very rude about it, and everyone thinks it's all in your mind. Its not.

Here is a link with some good info. Read about all 4 because some overlap:

http://www.hyperacusis.net/hyperacusis/4+types+of+sound+sensitivity/default.asp

There is a treatment for hyperacusis, along with CBT, but best thing you can do (if is is what he has) is to let him know he's not insane, and teach him how to avoid the sounds and deal with the anger/anxiety.Aan MP3 player with noise canceling headphones (the cheaper ones are fine) will go a long way to making him comfortable. Make sure his school is aware if is too, so if he gets irritated, he can walk out of the room and chill out. If you can't escape the sound, you can lose it- rage, panic, tears.

Sufferers can also be tough to live with, but be sympathetic if you can, because if you had to hear finger nails on a chalkboard all day you would be crabby too I have to remind my family that it's me, and not them, because they get to feeling guilty about making noise, even though it's normal. He needs a safe, quiet place he can retreat to, if possible, so that siblings can be normal without causing him misery.

If he doesn't have this, its still good to be aware it exists. If I had known about it sooner than age 30, it would've helped a lot. Sometimes just knowing what something is makes a difference- when I found out others had this, I felt an enormous amount of relief. For years, I had been told it was due to all types of things: diet, lack of vitamins/etc, psychosis, a variety of mental illnesses, anxiety, neurosis, imagination, being spoiled (!). It's none of those things, it is its own unique syndrome.

Good luck!

[Lovesong]

I do have hearing sensory issues, in that I cannot really filter sound as well as most people can. This means that I pay attention to all sounds that are made around me, and my brain is always trying to make sense of what I hear, which in a busy environment is tiring at best and absolutely exhausting to the point of needing to escape at the worst of times. In fact, sound is always the first thing I pay attention to. This means that when someone is talking, or otherwise making sounds loud enough to be discernible from the general back-ground noise in a home I cannot focus on what I am doing properly since my focus is shifted from what I am doing to the sound. This is especially an issue when I am doing something where I need to be immersed, like writing or reading. Since discernible sounds bring me out of the immersion, into the now, really only being able to focus on the interrupting sound.

When I was your daughter's age these kind of interruptions would throw me into a rage. I would sit and try to focus on what I was doing. Really try really hard, until I simply snapped because of the impossibility of it. Usually the offender in my house was music. Not necessarily played all that loudly, but loud enough for me to hear the beat even in my room. Over and over. Thump-thump-thump-thump...

Oh, the fights I had especially with my siblings over their music! We would all rush to my parents, pointing fingers, complaining, trying to convince them of our own opinion. In my case: "I can't concentrate!" in their case "Should I be forced to live in silence?!".

Headphones and earplugs was not a solution in my family. Mainly because we felt it a punishment. I felt it a punishment to be forced to wear earplugs (especially since they hurt my ears after a while of wearing them, no matter the model). Plus, I don't know if I really heard the thumping through the earplugs but I was convinced I did. So, hurting my ears and not solving the problem. Noise cancelling headphones probably was not even invented back then, and in any case, I could not have worn them in bed reading, because I like to lay on my side.

This was an issue until...I don't know. Until my sister moved from home, I guess. And my brother bought his first pair of really good headphones, that rendered the sound of the bass in his electronic music much better than his stereo did.

Generally, I think things would have been better for me had my parents really understood about my hearing sensory issues and not just ascribed it to one of my strange convictions, that I had many of as a child. Amongst other things I was convinced that I would never wear a skirt shorter than below my knees, or for that matter start shaving my legs or wear make-up. I was very much anti everything that everyone else was pro, growing up. So they thought my hate of music simply was part of my anti-stance.

Anyhow, for how to deal and cope with it...

- First of all, show understanding towards your daughter and her feelings. Really, I think this can't be underestimated. Because if there is one thing that is worse than having these issues is feeling as if no one understands.

- Secondly, work with your younger daughter to teach her about controlling her volume just a bit. Not hushing her. Not telling her to mellow down. Not to stop bouncing and jumping and singing. Just ask her to turn the volume down a bit when indoors, by illustrating what you mean.

- Thirdly, establish "quiet time" in your home. In my home, it was between 22.00 (our bedtime) and 10.00 (so no one was waken by noise). Between those hours, if you wanted to play music you used your headphones. If you turned on the television, you were not allowed to turn up the volume beyond that of being able to hear what was said (half-way in our case). You did not turn on the dishwasher (which could wake my brother who sleeps in the room next to the kitchen) and generally just tried to think about talking softly etc. It might be especially helpful to establish a quiet hour right after school too, in which home work etc. can be done. Or that can be used just to calm down after school.

- Lastly, look into meditation. It might seem silly, but if her anger stems from not being able to concentrate when there are sounds around, her focus being drawn to the sound rather than to what she is doing, it will help her to be able to pull the focus back into herself. In my case, I imagine my centre as a shiny, strong, cold steel rod. Going from the top of my head down into my feet, grounding me deeper with each breathe until my focus is entirely on the cold metal. I don't hear the noise attracting my attention any longer. My anger over the noise melts away...and I can open my eyes again, with focus regained.

[purslaine]

Thank you newsolarmomma2 and Lovesong for your perspective.  It is helping to change mine  

[earthmama369]

My dad, myself, and DS (age 5) all have sensory issues with auditory filtering as a major issue and sound sensitivity as a minor one. By minor, I mean that on a good day when all synapses are lined up and firing right (or as right as they ever get), sound sensitivity isn't a problem. On days when we're already on edge, SPD is "flaring," we're overtired, etc., then it's an issue.

For auditory filtering, DS tends to do better when he's closer to the person speaking than he is to the background activity. So in school, we've asked that he sit toward the front of the room. It also helps to touch him on the shoulder, put my finger on my chin pointing toward my mouth, and speak clearly and succinctly. When he's having a rough day, he can't handle more than one-step directions and needs a lot of redirecting. On a good day, you would never know there's any issue at all. For me, I find that a certain amount of background noise can be tuned out and when I was a teenager, I actually worked better if there was music playing in the background. However, that was when I was working on something on my own. If someone tried to speak to me in that situation, I would have a hard time tuning in to their words. I still do. My dad is the same way. He has a home office and cannot take any calls from customers if there is any noise in the house at all. When the kids go over to visit, he switches his phone to voicemail because he knows that even if they're in the yard playing, he won't be able to focus on the voice on the phone. He's also really gotten into e-mailing his customers for the same reason.

Sound sensitivity seems to really come and go, and a lot of it depends on who's controlling the noise. DS vocalizes a lot when he's stimming, so even on a high sensory day, if he's the one making the noise, it doesn't seem to matter how loud he is (to him, anyway!). But on that kind of day, he'll often say that the radio is too loud, his sister is too loud, people are laughing too loud, etc. My dad loooooves loud classical music, especially the military marches, but can't stand shrieking from the kids, loud conversational levels like you get in crowded restaurants or indoor parties, that kind of thing. I don't mind fireworks, that kind of open-air noise, but it seems like everyone likes to listen to the radio and TV louder than I do. Ambulance sirens kill me. But the kids' noise -- chattering, laughing, whining, arguing, singing -- I can handle any amount of it on a good day and next to none of it on a bad day. I try to hold us all to the same rule of reasonable noise. Loud voices can go outside. Inside we use inside voices. If DS and/or I are having a bad day, it's ok for us to let the people around us know and to excuse ourselves as possible for some quiet time in our rooms, but we can't demand that the world around us stop making noise. DS has even excused himself from the table at dinner a couple times and come back when everyone was done. I'm ok with that, in that context.

It's interesting to see how the same issues track across generations in our family, and to see how they affect us at the different ages we're at. I'd say that right now, DS has the harder time of it. He's still developing solid coping skills, he swings more between good days and bad days as he goes through all the changes that a small kid goes through (growth spurts, developmental spurts, starting school, making friends, etc.). Helping him figure all this out has been really helpful for me, too. My dad and I were never diagnosed. That was all figured out when DS was diagnosed and the neurodevelopmental pediatrician went through a family history with me. She unofficially diagnosed me while she was at it. Talk about a lightbulb moment. So I've been gaining strategies and new coping skills along with DS. The one thing we've really held firm with, though, is developing socially appropriate coping techniques and being rational in what we ask of other people. It's ok to ask someone not to speak so loudly to you. It's not ok to tell them to shut up.

[purslaine]

Originally Posted by earthmama369 

It's interesting to see how the same issues track across generations in our family,........ The one thing we've really held firm with, though, is developing socially appropriate coping techniques and being rational in what we ask of other people. It's ok to ask someone not to speak so loudly to you. It's not ok to tell them to shut up.

It does run in my family, as well.

Throughout my life I have been unable to sleep if there is any noise, save for white noise.  My father used to watch the TV late at night and it was practically on mute and it drove me insane.  I also hear base from radio etc when no one else does.  I cannot have one window open in the car (it has to be multiple windows) because it makes a vibrating sound.  Drives me nuts if someone forget to roll up one window and i start to drive with a window down - I literally have to pull over and wheel it up.  I tend to be borderline deaf to conversation on TV, but sound effects drive me batty.  I have taken to sitting with the remote so I can regulate the volume as I watch.

I should not be surprised that DD is sensitive.

I agree with you on the last sentence and she does need to learn some coping skills and socially appropriate responses.

I am also thinking of creating quiet times to give her a mental break as per a previous suggestion.