I can’t begin to stress how important soundproofing is for my daily wellbeing. Sound sensitivity in autism is a common experience. I’ve talked about sound sensitivity before in the context of noise-canceling headphones. As much as I love my headphones, it’s simply not feasible to wear them everywhere.
So today, thanks to Autistic Science Person, we get to talk about soundproofing. Or sound dampening, since getting a room to truly be silent is quite a feat. And not necessarily good for the people inside anyway. (Imagine always being able to hear your own heart beat and the blood rushing through your veins, and it might become a bit clearer as to why perfect soundproofing is not ideal…)
Sensory sensitivity is an issue I personally deal with every day. It mostly affects my hearing, and it works like this:
For a full 60 seconds, stop everything you’re doing. Listen to your environment. Are there people talking? Fans running? Appliances humming? Pets moving around the house? Geese, songbirds, or airplanes flying overhead? Is a TV on somewhere? Really strain to listen and identify every thing that’s making noise. If you’re able, write down every source of noise you can hear in that minute, no matter how quiet or irrelevant it seems.
Now, how much of that noise were you aware of before doing this exercise?
If your brain and hearing are typical, you most likely were only aware of the loudest thing or two in your area, unless it was relevant to you personally. Your brain, you see, filters out noise it considers irrelevant. This is generally a good thing. It keeps you from having to pay attention to stuff that’s not important. It’s a mental trick to save energy.
People with sound sensitivity don’t have that filter. Or if they do, it doesn’t function as well as it should. Because of that, we can easily become overwhelmed by loud noises or noisy environments.
Noise-canceling headphones and earplugs are the first and most obvious line of defense for autism sound sensitivity, but as Autistic Science Person says, they’re not always an option. Also, having a safe space to retreat to when overstimulated is incredibly important for my wellbeing.
My current home is fairly well soundproofed against noises from the neighbor we share a wall with. But there’s only so much you can do when the house is directly on the typical path to the airport. I honestly don’t mind the airplanes, for the most part. In my first apartment, I also didn’t mind the trains after I got used to them. These sounds are somewhat predictable and I can immediately identify them, which helps me manage always hearing them.
When I lived in apartment buildings, it was significantly worse. The soundproofing was minimal, especially when it came to the hallway. Doors slammed all the time. People yelled in the hallways. The buzzer to open the front door would go off at random intervals, and sometimes people would just buzz random apartments until someone let them in. Sometimes you could hear disagreements in other apartments.
I don’t miss all that extra noise. If I do the listening exercise I had you do before, I hear the air purifier fan, the hum of the HVAC, the hum of my computer, and that’s about it. Anything else, I choose to add to my environment. I’m presently bird-sitting for some friends, so that’s adding to my ambient noise. I also have a livestream (think like live TV) going to help make the bird comfortable. But I have it on very quietly so I can ignore it better.
I would still really like to have a space that’s decked out with acoustic foam, as Autistic Science Person suggests. Maybe, in time, I could rig the bedroom with that foam or with egg cartons or whatever the less expensive options are. Or create a quiet sensory box, like one autism dad did for his kid.
I love Autistic Science Person’s recommendations in their post. They have direct links to good sources for acoustic-dampening foam and guides for how to install it. They’ve also put together a Ko-Fi for families that really can’t afford to buy foam or have it installed.
I’ve personally bookmarked this post about managing sound sensitivity with autism, since I’ll want it for later. I hope you find it useful too.
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