Building Bridges to Understand Auditory Sensitivity

Noise-Reducing Headphones, Autism, and Hope

By Maite Rodríguez-Márquez, PhD

In my learning process as the mother of a child with autism, everything was new to me. Mixed with the constant fear of wondering whether my ability as a mother would be enough, I began to realize that understanding his challenges, his emotions, and what he was trying to tell me with his eyes or with his behavior had to become my priority.

Little by little, I came to understand that it wasn’t about “fixing” him, but about learning to see him differently, to listen beyond his words, and to make his emotional well-being the center of our family life.

I had already seen signs at home: whenever I turned on the blender or the vacuum, he would smile, cover his ears, and run away. One ordinary Sunday at church, I realized it wasn’t something isolated: as soon as the worship music began, he would simply slip away from me and run out of the sanctuary. I didn’t know what was happening to him. I was still learning, in the middle of the emotional shock of the diagnosis, and all I wanted was to protect my little boy from everything and everyone.

Along the way, I also came across very spiritual, well-intentioned people who associated his running away with something spiritual: they spoke of warfare, of attacks, of things that needed to be rebuked. I listened, but inside I felt there was something else that no one was seeing: my son wasn’t running away from God, he was running away from the noise.

Sadly, not everyone wants you to talk about your process. There are those who tell you, “don’t talk about that,” those who judge you and insist you’re overprotecting him and that “what he needs is correction,” and also those who don’t understand and don’t even want it explained to them. I would grow frustrated right along with my child: he because of his challenges, and I because I couldn’t fully understand him. Even so, in that difficult season I could count on his older brother, who ran faster than I did or his dad did, and was able to catch up with him.

Until one night, while searching for information in those sleepless early-morning hours, I came across the phrase “auditory sensitivity” for the very first time.

When I read the words “auditory sensitivity,” I felt that, at last, someone was putting into words what my heart had been suspecting for a long time. It wasn’t defiance, it wasn’t a lack of discipline, it wasn’t something “spiritual” that needed to be rebuked; it was the way his brain received sound. While others listened to music, my little boy felt a storm inside his ears. And instead of seeing it as a problem that needed to be fixed, I began to see it as a part of him that I needed to learn to understand and lovingly walk alongside.

Auditory sensitivity is when sounds that are normal for other people feel too loud, irritating, or even painful for a child with autism. It’s not “being picky” or “overdramatic”; it’s the way their brain processes sound.

When a child with auditory sensitivity walks into a noisy place, they’re not “misbehaving”; they’re trying to survive something their body experiences as a threat.

Many families live in a constant state of alert: before accepting an invitation, they think about the noise, the music, and how many people will be there. It’s not that they don’t want to participate; they’re just calculating whether their child will be able to handle it without suffering.

The key is to look for patterns: it’s not about one isolated meltdown, but a repeated response to certain types of sounds.

Naming what is happening to a child doesn’t label them, it sets them free. When the family understands that it’s auditory sensitivity, it’s no longer about having “a difficult child,” but about a child who needs support with how their brain receives sound.

The home can become a sensory refuge. It’s not about living in absolute silence, but about making agreements: “I’ll let you know before I turn the blender on,” “if the TV bothers you, you can go to your quiet corner.” These small changes send a big message: your well-being matters.

Families don’t have to face auditory sensitivity on their own. When the school, therapists, and parents work together, the child feels that the world adjusts, even just a little, to fit them, instead of forcing them to endure the noise until they break.

Auditory sensitivity does not define everything a child is, but it does teach us to see the world through their ears. When the family learns to listen to that need, bridges of understanding are built: less blame, fewer raised voices, more hugs, and more calm.

It’s not about having a perfect, quiet house, but a home where each member can say, “Here, they understand me. Here, my sensitivity is not a problem; it’s part of who I am.”

I heard there were noise-reducing headphones, and I went straight to Amazon to look for them. For me, it wasn’t just a purchase; it was the beginning of a process. I needed to teach him that these things we were trying to put on him weren’t a punishment or a whim, but something that could help him feel better, something that could make the world sound just a little bit quieter.

Little by little, I also began learning to speak to him differently. I stopped using that overprotective tone that sometimes comes from fear and started talking to him normally, looking him in the eyes, just as his older brother did. I watched how his brother explained everything to him as if there were no barriers and no autism in the way, as if the diagnosis were not at the center of the conversation. From him, I learned to treat my child with dignity, not pity, to remind myself every day that my son is not his diagnosis, but a whole child, with the right to understand and to be understood.

We started with the most ordinary things: the vacuum cleaner at home. We would turn it on and, while someone held him gently, another person showed him the headphones. We turned it into a game: with our hands we pretended to turn the music up, and right at the “loudest” moment, we would put the headphones on him. We did the same with the blender, over and over again, with patience and half-nervous laughter somewhere between fear and hope.

Until one day, in the middle of that little domestic ritual, he looked straight into our eyes with such a beautiful gaze that no words were needed. In that look, he was telling us that he understood, that this was helping him, that he finally felt a little more at ease.

Years later, I learned that I hadn’t been making anything up: there are studies confirming that noise-reducing headphones and earmuffs can help children with autism better manage auditory hypersensitivity and reduce stress-related behaviors triggered by noise. I was simply following my mother’s instinct: if the world couldn’t turn its volume down for him, at the very least I could place a small “shield” over his ears so he could breathe a little easier.

📝 A note from my perspective as an educator:

What I share here is not just personal experience. Studies on sensory integration and autism have found that auditory sensitivity is common in our children, and that tools such as earmuffs or noise-reducing headphones can help decrease stress and improve their participation at school, church, and in the community. That’s why listening to their sensory needs is not an exaggeration; it’s an essential part of caring for their well-being.