Does society oppress those on the spectrum with noise?
I'm pretty sensitive to noise but it's not reasonable to expect air not to vibrate.
I've never heard of a medicine that addresses hyperacusis in ASD. Theoretically they might invent something but as far as I know, they haven't. Even if they did, like most medications it probably wouldn't be 100% effective or 100% safe. And in many countries it wouldn't be 100% free of charge. "Sound therapy" has the advantage of (presumably) zero side effects, and if a client can access it, that would probably be worth a try, though I've no idea what the success rate is. I tried it on myself without knowing of the existence of professional protocols for it, I just intuitively felt that gradually increasing the volume of suitable recordings of the offending noise types might do the trick, which I gather is the essence of what the professionals do, but my efforts largely failed.
Of course it's not logically reasonable to expect the air not to vibrate if somebody vibrates it. Morally, I think the matter is probably imponderable in many cases. How does anybody measure the harm to somebody of having no choice but to tolerate a particular noise? How does anybody measure the harm to somebody of being forced to stop making that noise? We can only be anything like sure in extreme cases. At the end of the day, if somebody's doing something that gets on your nerves enough, you'll try to get them stopped, not because it's necessarily the right thing to do, but because you're human.
Concerning the vexed question of "why don't you just use earplugs?" it looks like they can sensitise the wearer and thus make the problem worse.
"Some individuals with hyperacusis feel that wearing hearing protection to avoid disturbing sounds is helpful; however, this is not advisable when environmental sound levels are safe. Avoiding normal-level sounds in the environment can make the auditory system become more sensitive to these sounds when protection is not used. This increased sensitivity can exacerbate the hyperacusis (Formby, Sherlock, & Gold, 2003)."
https://www.asha.org/practice-portal/cl ... peracusis/
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If it's working, it's on a job site and needs an audible warning to be safely operated. Accidents don't only happen in industrial and construction settings.
If anything places that have continuous (or at least regular) operations involving this sort of machinery would be far more likely to have everyone who might interact with the piece of equipment observing the same safety protocols. The people operating the machines in those contexts are more likely to encounter people who aren't trained to work safely around them or actively looking out for them.
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I am currently listening to some motor handling a rising and falling load, and if I needed a nap, it would be driving me mad, but I had enough sleep, so it seems OK and easy to ignore. One time, when I had to camp at a friend's place in the country to avoid construction noise, I was catching up on my sleep when he started splitting wood with a maul (a fat axe.) I heard the first stroke, and fell right back asleep, confident that the noisemaker was friendly and would keep me safe.
So, some people think this isn't society being intentional, but as I said in the initial post... if they get someone, who they moved specifically due to their diagnosis and noise, to the busiest street possible... then one can only chalk it up to sadism. Like, does one really need to live in a mansion to get away from noise? Is silence really that expensive? I throw plastic bottles partially full with water, and if they think that's worse than the destruction of one's mind due to noise they're just delusional... if I wanted to be destructive I'd use glass bottles, and was once about to throw one actually when I could barely think in the midst of construction noise (wtf do they expect when they first destroy the cortex?!) - just like a drowning person would hold onto anything to get back up, so is with this... society is either negligent or sadistic, but when literally they have had a hand in the diagnosis one would think the latter...
It's just where a lot of social housing is. Almost all social housing is in cities and towns because it makes it a lot easier for people in such circumstances to reach amenities. Assuming you were placed in a house in the middle of the countryside miles away from the nearest town or shop, how would you fair? You said you dislike engines and can't drive so I imagine busses or cars are ruled out for you?
You need to be aware the the housing the local authority has is placed in areas that meet the needs of the greatest number of people. They can't make or buy a house to meet the needs of every single person they deal with on a case by case basis. It just isn't possible.
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I don't think it deliberately oppresses us, but neglect can be a form of oppression. Don't think anyone is too happy with urban noise levels, but improving the general quality of life and saving autistic people actual pain is way down the list of priorities for the decision-makers. Far, far below "Making a profit using loud, pollution-spewing machines."
The noise is also "oppressing" animals. Songbirds nowadays have to shout at the top of their tiny voices to hear each other, wasting energy they can ill afford. And whale social networks are disrupted by shipping noise than drowns out their long-distance calls. Again, not deliberate, but oppression by neglect.
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Dear_one
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Enforced silence is another form of oppression, to off-spectrum folk who regard top-volume speech and music to be proper use of the available range. The current population density is the real oppressor, juxtaposing the two groups far too often. Currently, I am bedeviled by occasional street dances near my home, but 40 years ago, I'd have been hoping they would run to dawn.
"Some individuals with hyperacusis feel that wearing hearing protection to avoid disturbing sounds is helpful; however, this is not advisable when environmental sound levels are safe. Avoiding normal-level sounds in the environment can make the auditory system become more sensitive to these sounds when protection is not used. This increased sensitivity can exacerbate the hyperacusis (Formby, Sherlock, & Gold, 2003)."
https://www.asha.org/practice-portal/cl ... peracusis/
Also - at one time I had to use earplugs several nights a week to deal with late-night noise from my housemates. They literally rubbed the insides of my ears raw and I kept getting infections.
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Sometimes I think the only solution is a homeland for people who like it quiet, and another one for those who like it noisy, but as you suggest, with land in short supply they're not going to do it very much. And there are so many different strongly-held individual preferences, and they can't all be solved by separating people on that basis. Still, they have "quiet coaches" on some trains, though even when they do, the rules aren't enforced very well.
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