Sensory Sound — Play it Loud!

 

In the movie, Good Morning Vietnam, as a disc jockey, the late Robin Williams did a ditty about a soldier in artillery saying, “Play anything, just play it loud!”  I’m autistic and I like it LOUD.  This should freak out an autistic person, right?

It goes like this:  If there are multiple sources of noise at a normal noise level, I get supremely agitated and cranky, and I want to escape.  I just want it to stop NOW.  But, if there is really loud music that drowns out other senses, I love it.  Love it, love it, love it.  Oh the joy of being able to revel in the focus of just one song.

It’s like that when hubby and I go dancing.  The loud music envelops my body like billowing silk and rubs my senses raw so I take in even more–of ONE thing.  And, he twirls me around and around, which for an autistic person is very relaxing.

Children don’t go downtown dancing, but as a child I did the same thing.  I found every excuse I could to twirl.  Wisely, my mother didn’t allow it in the house because I fell down once and hurt myself on a piece of furniture.  So I twirled outside and fell on the soft grass.

For sound, I remember playing my parents’ records over and over.  I memorized songs and album covers.  This sounds simple, and it was since we didn’t have TV in the house because it wasn’t available where we lived at that time.

Autistic children these days have TV, which is both a blessing and a curse.  They can revel in the same movie over and over again, or they can do something with the noise of TV in the background, which could produce a melt down.