Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Is this normal??

Caleb has had TERRIBLE behavior the last couple of days. Everything results in a tantrum of unprecedented proportions (well, maybe not unprecedented, but definitely not seen since Three). Last night, we had to leave our church's gathering/council meeting WITHOUT Scott and Nikki because he was screaming and hitting uncontrollably. Thankfully, our pastor lives close and was able to drive them home. Today he went to school, but we had speech afterward and he had a huge fit (the kind that requires a full-body restraint for several minutes) over practicing his sounds with me.

After his speech teacher took him to get a snack and glass of water and came back to find me in tears, I told her that his behavior has progressively worsened since getting his hearing aids. This is VERY disappointing, since I thought they would make things BETTER. Then I realized that he MAY be on sensory overload with all his new sounds. The last two days, he's worn them ALL DAY, and they were the worst days.

Does this hypothesis make any sense? Even if it doesn't, say it does. I need some hope to hold onto here!!

5 comments:

leah said...

My little guy's a lot younger than your son, but he gets "sensory overload" and cries a lot and is agitated when he's had his aids on all day, or after an intensive therapy session. I have listened through his aids and the background noise can be tremendous! He's done better in the past month or so, but there is definitely an adjustment period to aids!

TAMI said...

I don't know about your hypothesis, but it DOES make sense somewhere! Maybe only in the Heavens. It's possible though, that it doesn't need to make sense to you - only for you to continue to love him just like the very first day you brought him home and every day since.

SENSE? Ya, don't wait for that. We'd all be in freeze-frame if we were standing around waiting for life to make sense!!

Susan said...

OF COURSE he is having overload. For the last four years he has been able to choose what to focus on and easily shut out everything else. He has been able to be alone in a world full of people and loud noisy thing. All of a sudden (literally in the space of space minutes)all the world is in his ears. He has to choose what to focus on and make a concerted effort to shut out the rest. On top of that there are people requiring him to focus on tasks, on top of that he has had mom and dad go back to work, he is back in school, all requiring further adjustments. Remember that ALL change is hard, even good change. It is particularly hard if you are four years old and don't fully understand the change.

Life will get better as he adjusts, but it probably won't get better super quickly. Take a deep breath, again, now one more. Now a bubble bath. There isn't that better?

Herding Grasshoppers said...

Cindy,

When my son got his HA's (at 3.5) we took weeks to work up to wearing them full time. He was overwhelmed by all the noise bombarding him. And we started by wearing them in quiet environments... NOT in the car, or in a large group.

Hard to say if it's better to take the slow route, or - if Caleb WANTS them in - to wear them constantly.

Sounds like he is stressed... but you already knew that :0)

Does he have to go to school, or could he stay home... just, being that he's still only four? Or scale back how much he goes? Maybe that's not possible.

I know that my son got overloaded at school. Even as an "older" kid (1st and 2nd grade) he would come home exhausted and easily frustrated/provoked. It wasn't that the school was treating him badly. I attributed it to the exhaustion of having to work so hard to listen all day.

I'm sure you know... but HA's don't "correct" hearing, like glasses or contacts correct vision. It's probably more like what you would hear if you laid a cassette tape recorder in the middle of a room and tried to listen to it later, and sort out what you were supposed to be attending to. Every chair scrapes the floor, every toy clonks the table, every pencil-tap gets magnified.

At school, in a larger group of kids (even nice, friendly, well-behaved kids) there is just a lot more noise to filter through.

We ended up deciding to home-school, in part due to hearing issues. (I'm NOT trying to guilt anyone, or saying that's what everyone should do!) Just speaking practically, it's a lot easier for Tate to hear and learn in the quieter environment of a smaller group.

But now I've got to get him to soccer practice, so I'd better run!

Don't know if that helps at all, but - most likely - this too shall pass :0)

Julie

Cindy said...

Thanks for all the helpful responses. I gave him a break from his aids when I picked him up today. He started going into a frenzy, but was able to calm down after about a half hour without the aids.

It is a really hard adjustment time for him. And Julie, yes, he has to go to preschool. We are both teachers and get to stay home all summer with him, but at some point we have to earn some money. It would be nice to have the flexibility to stay home, but one teacher's salary doesn't get you very far in San Diego.

So much to think about and do. And I haven't even started getting my syllabi ready for school!