Sensitive to sounds(toilet, garage door)....

It might be Sensory Integration Dysfunction. This is on my dd’s “list”. :) A good book on the subject is The Out-Of-Sync Child.

Holding your ears is a classic symptom of a potential auditory processing problem. My daughter put her hands over her ears a lot when she was younger and still does now in some scenarios. Auditory processing issues also very frequently lead to reading difficulty. My daughter’s reading specialist actually recommended testing for auditory processing. An audiologist can diagnose auditory processing problems and often health insurance will cover the cost. A interesting telltale book about auditory processing is called “Like Sound Through Water.” I also agree with the above suggestion about the “out of sync child.” I looked at sensory integration as well since my daughter is also very sensitive. It’s a possibility.

My daughter had this problem too and still does at times. (She’s ten now.)
I never considered it was anything other than a little bit of extra sensitivity.

If you do a google search for “hold hands over ears auditory processing” you’ll see that you’ll get several hits. Generally though the main auditory processing websites will put something like hypersensitivity to noise as a symptom. Anyway, it’s just one potential sign. Other ones include late language development, reading problems etc.

I never knew about sounds being part of a processing disorder. My 1st grader is highly sensitive to sounds. He has always been very afraid of high school bands and fire trucks. He would never go to a football game and does not like them now because he is afraid the band will be playing there. He had something special at the football field for 1st graders this past fall and he wanted to go so bad. So, he put his hands over his ears and after some time he was OK with the band. I just thought it was a phobia and had no idea it could be something else.

Shawndee

Hi All,

As some of you know, I post a fair amount about vision problems and reading because I have experience in that area.

My problem with auditory processing issues is that, at least in forums such as this, there’s so little detail provided. Often it’s just “auditory processing disorder.”

Once you get to detail, such as in this thread, where the issue is over-sensitivity to sounds, then at least there’s something specific to consider.

Having said that, here’s one thought. I consider “dyslexia” to be a genetically-induced syndrome of sorts marked by delayed development across any of several fronts (which is why there are so many “markers” of the problem, such as failure to crawl, poor left/right differentiation, slow language development, visual skills deficits, etc.)

It’s an interesting fact that our visual systems occupy a huge part of our brains and that over thousands of years the visual part of the brain has grown at the expense of the auditory and olefactory (smell) so we no longer hear and smell elements of our environment the way other mammals do.

Now, imagine a young brain which is supposed to be building this massive visual system. You’ve all seen this with your babies, as they move from staring at Mom’s face to staring at the only moving object, to following you around the room, to realizing that an object didn’t cease to exist just because he can’t see it any longer, etc.

Well, in a case of generalized delayed development, might not the delay in the normal development of the visual system free up space for other senses to develop more fully? And if a young child has exceptionally poor visual skills, might not he begin to rely, even over-rely, on other senses? Could this lead to his becoming super-sensitive compared to his peers; even to his brothers and sisters who didn’t get the dyslexia gene passed to them?

After all, we’ve all heard of people who’ve lost their sight and then become much better attuned to sounds and smells. That’s just the brain adapting to its new environment, one with no visual input. If it could create new synapses to deal with a loss of sight, certainly a baby’s brain would be capable of such development, only in a much more ambitious way, I suspect.

And I’m not trying to say it’s all vision-related here, by the way. I’m just pointing out that vision is usually affected adversely, and that this could logically lead to developments in other directions. They aren’t even necessarily bad developments; just different. For instance, see [url=http://ontrackreading.com/the-vision-piece/growing-an-architect]Growing an Architect[/url] on my website at ontrackreading.com. Maybe the hypersensitivity to sounds could lead down certain career paths as well, assuming it persisted.

I’m just speculating here. As I said at the outset, I’m not very familiar with the auditory diagnoses.

Rod Everson
[url=http://ontrackreading.com/the-dyslexia-puzzle/my-take-on-dyslexia]OnTrack Reading—My Take on Dyslexia[/url]

I was actually listening to a speech from a neurology expert yesterday who pointed out that learning problems rarely if ever can be pinned down to one diagnosis because the brain is so complicated and everything interacts. Therefore visual, auditory etc. are usually working together. However, the ability to physically hear is often separated in medical testing from the ability to process what is heard. The ability to hear is usually tested through the famous “Do you hear the beep?” test. Those who are hearing impaired have trouble with the test, and those with above average hearing may be able to hear sounds that those with normal hearing cannot. Auditory processing refers to what the brain does with the sound it hears. Those with severely disordered processing often are said to hear sound like it is traveling through water. They can physically hear the sound, but it is garbled. There are various degrees of trouble and several subcategories of possible auditory processing problems. Much of auditory processing is developmental as well, so it can get better with time. However, children with auditory processing can have alot of trouble distinguishing the difference between say a “g” and a “d” sound. This makes tasks like spelling very difficult. (I still cannot convince my daughter that “t” and “ch” sound different so I am preparing for another “churkey day!”) Another common area of trouble with auditory processing is so-called auditory discrimination. I think this is sometimes where the hands over the ears thing occurs. Most people can filter out unimportant sounds and focus on a speaker or whatever they are supposed to listen to. A child with discrimination problems has great difficulty filtering. I don’t know if they hear all the sounds at the same level or exactly what occurs, but basically a child with this problem may not be able to pay attention to the teacher very well because the noise of the lights, and the air conditioner and the kid tapping his pen, etc, etc. are distracting and overwelming the child. This can be a problem in a quiet room, so you can imagine a noisy room like a gym. That can be a nightmare to a child like this. It may be that the child does have very good hearing and that combined with processing problems makes loud settings painful. A neurologist probably knows that, but anyway an auditory processing problem extends beyond just super sensitive hearing.

Christi, hypersensitivity to sounds can be a symptom of more than one thing, and I think it would serve you well to have that evaluated. We would only be guessing.