Situation:An Auditory Sensitivity Toolkit is a predetermined individualized toolkit for individuals experiencing heightened sensitivity to sounds in their daily environments. The toolkit should include individual prevention strategies as well as coping strategies.
My 7 year old is strangely tuned in to certain sounds. For example, if the pages of a book are being turned within hearing distance, he reacts by screaming at the offender to stop it. He is agitated by the noise to the point of having to leave the proximity so he doesn’t continue to fixate on it. When someone who has dry hands rubs them together and he can hear it, it gives him the “willies” and chills. Yesterday at a restaurant, I reached to pull a napkin out of a dispenser , and he reacted by slinking down in the booth saying, “Great! Thanks a lot –I just lost my appetite from you doing that.” He couldn’t finish his toasted cheese sandwich. Another example is that he reacts loudly when paper is being ripped or a sheet of paper is being torn from perforations in a spiral bound notebook. When my long fingernails scratch against him, or I scratch my own itch, it drives him crazy.
How can our family help minimize these seemingly over-the-top reactions to what seem like innocuous sounds–besides the obvious removal of known triggers? Should we be concerned?