ASD child distressed by child crying.

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My Son gets pretty distraught when his sister cries.

He puts his hands to his ears and screams and cries and wants me to make her stop immediately.

I usually carry her into another room until she has calmed down. (he wont wear ear plugs or ear muffs)

Is anyone elses child or any members on the forum distressed by the noise of children crying?

I understand that the cause would be the noise sensitivity... but is there an element of fear with it as well?

I'd appreciate any advice you can offer...

thanks

Fear that one's brain must burst with the sensitivity registers all hitting the red zone inside the skull and fear that one may feel that way forever if it is not stopped immediately.

Think about putting your hand on the hot stove, with every fiber of your being focused on nothing more than getting your hand OFF that stove. Think about being startled by it, unprepared for the jolt to the system, feeling the searing pain of the burning flesh and being terrified of the bodily injury that is happening and the adrenaline pumping in the flight or fight response. All you want is for it to STOP!!

That is what I feel when a child hits the higher registers of crying, even now, as an adult. Shudders of actual physical pain shoot up my spine and I am forcing myself to breathe and calm myself as I remove myself from that situation as fast as possible, it sounds like that is what he is experiencing as well. (Yes, I am AS)

How old is the sister?

My son has always had an issue with his sister crying, but how we've dealt with it has changed with age.

I'm wondering at this point if this could be a competition for power type of thing. (DW_a_mom, I realize you don't like it when I talk about power, but please bear with me.) From your son's point of view, his younger sister can cry whenever she "wants", can cry for as long as she "wants", and get your attention almost instantly. For him, that would obviously not be the case. So, each time she cries, it acts as reminder of how she has the upper hand in the family, in a way. The sound of a baby crying being irritating (according to evolutionary biology, it's supposed to be like that) is only adding insult to the injury. That is, from his point of view.

The notion of "upper hand" brings me to another point: sibling rivalry. Your son feels slighted by the way his younger sister can cry at random whenever she "pleases". Remember: due to AS, he has difficulty seeing her point of view, and probably believes that she chooses to cry just because she wants to. (Exception would include situations when he sees her fall or something.) Because he's older, he has to put in a lot of effort in getting your attention. He might have already learned that copying his sister's behavior doesn't get him the attention he wants, so he's at a loss of what to do. And each time, the crying reminds him of how his sister is "winning".

Lol on the power thing

In this case you have a point. It depends on relative ages, though, how much that plays in.

I dont know exactly what is going on with your child, but I also hate when young children cry, because it is like being stabbed in the ear with an ice pick. VERY VERY painful for me. I am fine with low pitched sounds, but high pitched ones are very painful to me. I can stand a loud song if it just has a guitar and drums (all low pitch). But anything high pitched like a soprano singing is just unbearable. And of course there isnt much that is higher pitched, or louder then a young girl screaming.

I'd like to add something else to help the OP. In addition to the power aspect I mentioned earlier, there's also the unpredictability factor: your little girl can cry at any moment, for an undetermined length of time. It's stressful as it is for you, even if you find the cries endearing on some level (in a "hey, she wants to communicate with me" kind of way). Now, as we all know, if aspies are bothered by anything, it's unpredictability. So it's no surprise that your son is distressed from the crying. Due to the fact that it happens when nothing is seemingly wrong, your son might be getting the impression that his little sister is using the crying to get what she wants; also, he might think that he can see through the "manipulation", and you can't. (This probably ties in to the power aspect.) He knows better than to actually say it, but that could be another reason why he's bothered so much by the crying. But mostly, it's the unpredictability of it.

Isn't it interesting. All my life, ulterior motives have been attributed to my sensory issues. I, for one, can attest in all honesty, that it is the pain it causes that causes me to react.
My issue as a child was my sense of perfect pitch. My mother would start to sing and it was like lightening flashing and striking inside my head with an electric shock all down my body.. The thunder would pound my ear drums and my ears wouldn't pop from but the pressure inside my head and my sinuses would swell and ache from the barometric change, all coming from the sound vibrations coming from her voice box. This frightened me and I would howl "don't sing! dooooon't sing, Mommy" crying and running away from my mother's lap. My brother noticed nothing objectionable to my mother's voice and would bond singing with her, and my mother, being only human, felt hurt that her daughter would push her away and be so tactless as to mention her off key voice let along continue to rub it in every time with howling and ear holdings. I remember my brother trying to tell me that I was hurting her feelings, and not to be like that to mother. But all I knew is when she made that sound I could not help myself but try to make it stop.
My mother never had a clue I was 'autistic' I was simply willful or mean.

now I read it in the parents thread, the assignment of ulterior motives still exist, and nothing has changed from the 50's. There are a lot of emotions autistics don't feel, feel unevenly or deeper than the Mariana Trench. Some just have rudimentary egos to deal with life when young growing into them as the decades roll by. Most are not aware of feelings they do have so it is dubious to attribute non autistic instinctual emotional behaviour the neurotypical (forgive me, I have no other euphemism to use) takes for granted.

Being a child and only aware that when there is a certain audio frequency you hear and your head feels like it is going to explode. Like Pavlov's dogs were trained, it becomes part of a pattern of the hearing the sound, struggle to make it stop, and what ever the reaction is will become part of that pattern and begin to associate his sister the sound and your reaction.

I would have loved to stop making my mother feel bad and and be the good girl she wanted and show the love I had for her. But no one knew what was the matter.
Don't miss the moment to bond.
If making the sound stop involves being civil about it, so much the better.

Merle

I'm afraid I don't know much about dealing with children's problems. But I had to say... the sound of children crying is like fingernails on a blackboard - it goes right through me. For reasons I can't fathom, it makes me irrationally angry.

Sinsboldly: That was really insightful, makes me a better parent. Thanks so much for sharing.

Thank you so much everyone for your posts.

Particularly for the insight into how it may feel for him regards to the noise... It makes me realise how not only frustrating it would be but how painful it can be for him...

I'm positive he suffers mostly with certain noise frequencies...My Daughter (2) has a very high pitched noisy cry/scream! So when she does this my Son immediately puts his hands to his ears and shakes as if he was in fact struck by something very painful... poor darling.

We've managed to get him to wear some ear muffs...quite a breakthrough

We tried them out today while my hubby mowed the lawn... Usually our son stays inside, closes all doors and stares from the window with his hands to his ears...wanting to be outdoors but unable to...

He was so impressed with himself (as we were with him) that he was able to actually use the ear muffs, and get outside to watch his dad mow the lawns... He has been SO happy all after noon because of this! Honestly it puts a tear in my eye.

There were no tantrums from our daughter today, no tears... so we were unable to see if the ear muffs will help in that particular situation, but I'm sure they'll be a success!

Thanks again for your replies

I am concerned about this since I am expecting a baby in February. The sound of a crying baby is quite intolerable for my son, Jamie. Every time we go to the pediatricians office there are babies crying and he covers his ears, even when the sound is distant. When I watched my baby nephew Jamie would panic when he cried. There will be no way to shield him from the sounds of the baby crying when it's in our home. I wonder how he will respond.

This situation really concerns me, I think the best thing to do is to figure out why the baby is crying so that you can comfort the baby and eventually she will stop crying so that the child with ASD can calm down. Just my thought, I hope it helps

Laurannehere; I'm wondering if it would be helpful to invest in a set of ear muffs for Jamie for home use.. you can get some child size ones.. We're actually using adult ones which are quite firm and work very well.

We've been using them since the week end... My son has a special spot where he keeps them handy, and has been putting them on when my daughter cries/screams... And it is a god send. He is happy and not bothered by it at all now...

My son wasnt concerned with the crying at all until my daughter turned 8months old and started squeeling and the crying got louder as she got older. She was also easier to settle very quickly when younger... so perhaps your son might react differently to the newborn to what you expect... Wishing you well.

edwardsmith; Our daughter was easily and quickly settled as a baby. She's now 2... and throwing quite some tantrums and gets very grissly when tired (as she refuses to have a day nap). Unfortunately she is of the personality where she doesnt want to be held or have anyone near her when she is tantruming, crying or upset... she is very difficult to calm a lot of the time, so all I can do (if it's a tantrum) is offer her my assistance, try to comfort and if all other efforts fail, I have to ignore it until it passes other wise she just screams longer and louder. At this point I feel the ear muffs for our son during her bouts of crying is the only thing that is helpful for him until this stage passes... I hope the use of ear muffs doesnt create further problems down the track.... Is this what you meant regarding your concerns about this? Thanks