Sometimes noises that escape my attention are very bothersome to Ty.? It isn?t that they are louder to him than someone else ? more so that they play a bigger part in sensory information being received than to someone else.?? A loud noise can either scare him or aggravate him or both.

Contrarily, Ty speaks very loudly. ?He also speaks in a quite high pitch.? Teaching Ty appropriate levels of speaking based on his environment is difficult.? Speaking softly in church (for example) is not something that he ?gets?.

How can you help? Remind Ty to speak softly and demonstrate it when he is in an environment not suitable to loud speaking.? You will have to remind him often because he will not retain it for long.? If you are in an environment that does not require soft speaking, please allow Ty to speak at his normal level and pitch.? I don?t want to confuse Ty between environments just based off a person?s preference (including my own which is hard sometimes).? I want him to have clear guidelines on when it is okay to speak in his normal pitch and when it is inappropriate.? In our home, in the grocery store, outside ? all okay.? At church, during a wedding, an event, in a library or hospital ? not okay.? This may seem like typical things you have to teach children but there is a distinct difference.? Children without social spectrum issues (I might have just made that term up but it makes sense to me), gain an understanding of acceptable social behavior because they integrate into their culture and the common rules of that culture make sense to them.? For children with social spectrum issues though, social standards are like a foreign language that will always be very secondary.? With repetition, they may eventually LEARN the rules but the rules are not likely to make social sense to them.? I am going to continue to draw this to your attention because that last statement can be applied to all kinds of topics for Ty.