Does anyone's kids use ear plugs?

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If so, what kind? What do I need to be aware of when purchasing some?

My daughter is complaining of being distracted by pencil, paper, and people noises when taking a test. For example, she can't focus on the question because she is interrupted by the sound of her neighbor's pencil writing, someone turning a page, or sniffling. It would seem to me that ear plugs are the easiest solution, but I don't know if there is anything I need to be aware of.

We have done two things: first, we got the squashy foam "noise-reducing" earplugs for DS for movies (he's over it now, but we had a long sensory protocol for movies: earplugs, a hoodie and a baseball cap so he could not only reduce the sound to a tolerable level but also remove the screen from sight by looking down.) They were like the last two in this article: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/shop ... lence.html These had the advantage of being cheap and also working like a fidget (you squish them and they slowly unsquish.)

When he started Middle School and was worried about both the noise in the halls and what other kids would think of him, so we got him some noise-cancelling earbuds - the kind you use with an Ipod. Worked like a charm; we just didn't plug the tail into anything.

My 9 year old uses noise cancelling ear phones in his class. They reduce the background noise, but he can still hear the teacher. They are not as subtle as ear plugs, but he doesn't seem to care and ear plugs give him an adverse sensory sensation.

I got mine at www.therapyshoppe.com, but he is tiny and they may be too small for your kid. He got the plain blue pair (not the little kid animal ones). Or, if you think she might even wear ear phones, you can search something like :"sensory ear phones for classroom" and the right ear phones should pop up.

Thanks!

I don't think she would wear earphones as she would not want people to know she was wearing them. I hadn't considered ear buds not plugged in to anything.

I, myself, cannot stand the feeling of ear plugs in my ears. I never "get used to it" like everyone claims I will once they are in my ears a bit. I guess I won't know for her until I try them. She is open to the idea. But I 100% understand what she is talking about--and it makes me think she may have some ADD stuff going on--that difficulty controlling what you pay attention to. It is very irritating when you are trying to pay attention to the question on your test, but your brain insists on focusing elsewhere.

Yes, for some reason my son does not get embarrassed about this kind of stuff. He also will wear a chewy necklace in class, sit on a pressure cushion and carry fidgets around without feeling self conscious.

Up until this year, she didn't care about stuff like that either. Only now she has become (sometimes painfully) aware of the fact that other people have thoughts about her and a lot of the "boldness" I used to really admire in her (not caring what the fashion was, not caring what other kids were doing or what they thought) has diminished. <sarcasm> Yay, 4th grade! </sarcasm>

My son is also in 4th grade, but it probably is a boy versus girl thing. Not only do girls have more pressure to "be normal", but they also develop faster in many ways, and he may just not "be there" yet. My son has also embraced his "differentness" to some degree, which, again, I think is much easier for a boy to do than a girl in our society.

The silicone kind. They're cheap and in the drugstore, they diminish the noise and she can still hear fine.

I think it could be a boy/girl thing, too. My son didn't start to care until 5th grade, and even though he still has no problem with his own weirdness , he does tone it down a bit in public so as not to draw negative attention to himself (he's in 8th grade now, so I guess this is a good thing).

This question may be gross, but she tends to have very waxy ears (lots of people in my family do)...about how often do you change them out for a new pair? Or should I just teach her that if she sees earwax to throw them away?

IMO, it is expressly this that is the reason for the gender variance in autism diagnoses - I have come to believe it is entirely a nuture issue vs the nature issue it is typically presented: girls get the equivalent of early childhood intervention and social skills from their parents, teachers and peers - and peers use a significantly more operant-conditioning-type system. I know that, for myself, I was punished most horribly by my peers for any social infraction (it didn't help as much as appropriate instruction would have - or eventually did; theatre classes were what made me functional - but it SURE made me aware there was a problem)

In other words, this isn't a "boy's disease." It's just a highlight of how crappily we raise boys in our society and how low our social expectations of them are - look at what happens to NT boys (let's say the football players in Steubenville.) If researchers woke up to this idea, we might come up with better therapies.

At any rate, DS has always been painfully socially aware, and it's interesting which things he chooses to comply with (we had to find the "right" brand of shoes so that kids would leave him alone) and the things he doesn't (lots of his other clothing choices are expressly for the purpose of celebrating his differences; interestingly, they are not sensory-based choices but specific social "flags." He does kind of like being different, though.)

Not earplugs, but noise reducing ear muffs like the type a kid would wear at a gun range. She is not self conscious yet as she values their function. She doesn't like ear plugs. Too much sensory I guess.