Volume Control (and lack thereof)

A reasonable request from any mother, Shash.

Has his own hearing been checked? Have you asked anyone working with him – OT or ST? Have you tried social stories? Then of course there's always the familiar rewards/natural consequences. Best of luck.

Yeah, had his hearing checked – all okay. Have tried social stories, but he is not able to apply them in real time. Rewards only make things harder, unfortunately, because he'll do a little something and then expect a reward so it kind of blows up in my face.

We'll keep trying though. Thanks!!

How frustrating! I would have a really hard time with that because I suffer from headaches. I can't even imagine.

I have no helpful suggestions at all… just a lot of sympathy.

I have a daughter who NEVER stops talking — seriously NEVER — and she is a loud talker and, sometimes, a yeller. She has no "disabilities"… she just wants to be heard… even when the house is peaceful. She does the loud laughter thing too. I think it's an attention-getter. She wants us to notice her over her younger, identical twin brothers who get a lot of attention b/c they're younger and have special needs. We are constantly telling her to repeat whatever she just said using her indoor voice. When she's actually talking directly to us, I find that whispering everything I say to her seems to tone her down a bit. But, mostly, I'm just learning to live with who she is as an individual.

I hear you, Shashk, the rewards thing can really rebound badly. However the natural consequences of undesirable volume is being ignored until behavior changes. ?

I'm sure many mothers relate to your story – it's helpful to know we are not alone.

sure – my Aspie son (almost 9) doesn't like loud noises, but he sure can bring the noise! ;0) i shhh a lot too (i also have 5 & 6 yr old daughters – typical) – i think most moms do…it's our duty ;0)

[...] week, at 5 Minutes for Special Needs, I talk about my son's broken volume control issues and request knowledge on the best earplugs. All The Cool Kids Are Doing [...]

I have a 14 year old who was driving everyone mad with her loud and constant talking. My mom would say, "well at least she'll never get lost since we can hear her from miles away".

This past year her teacher came up with a fantastic solution that has worked for us! We call it the tube-a-loo. The official name is "Hear Myself Sound" from the Lake Shore Learning Store, (lakeshorelearning.com). It is shaped like an old fashioned telephone handset and is hollow. When you talk into it the sound goes directly back into your ear providing instant feedback. After a few months of us handing it to her to talk into every time her voice got too loud, she began to whisper!!!! You could also make one out of pvc pipe. I hope this works

Yes, my 5 year old son has no sense of volume…so we had his hearing tested and he had amazing hearing. The problem was that he hears the background noises that you or I can tune out, so he is talking over them. He hears the water running through the taps, he hears the trucks on the highway way down the road from us, he hears the tick of the clock the birds chirping far away.
So we made a meter on the wall, we put up a "Thermometer type style meter" made of construction paper. Had a smiley face at the top, and someone covering their ears on the bottom, and a plain face in the middle…so then we put his picture where we wanted to have his volume be.

Hugs,
catherine
catlevy@eastlink.ca

I was nodding my head the whole time I read this… we get the same thing in stereo with our twin boys who have no sense of volume control, one of them in particular screams a LOT but they're both loud, especially with the hysterical laughter. They can be in their bedroom upstairs with the door shut, and we can be downstairs on the opposite side of the house and still hear them.

Obviously we have tried talking to them about it but they honestly don't realize how loud they are. "Stop screaming." "I'm not screaming." "Yes you are, you just screamed." "No I didn't."

Sometimes it helps to tell them to "whisper" because their whisper-voices are pretty much like average-volume for most people. But it's only a matter of time before they're back to breaking the sound barrier.

I wish I had some better suggestions… we just keep pointing it out to them hoping that over time they'll start to recognize themselves when they're being too loud.

My child also lacks volume control. When speaking with one of her speech therapists today, she said she is still suffering from tonal processing. We have been doing the listening program for a long time, but she says we are not there yet.

Perhaps some auditory therapy would help.

Is this a twin thing? My 8 year old daughter, a B/G twin, cannot, absolutely cannot, control the volume of her voice. She will shout in my face if I am right in front of her. I had her hearing checked and it's perfect. Like Danette said, her whisper voice is like a normal person's regular voice. I'd like to try the Hear Myself Sound thing. I'm at wits end. Sometimes it's downright embarassing when she shouts personal information in the middle of the mall or WalMart.