When an autistic, Asperger’s, or otherwise challenging child comes to my clinic, I ask the parents about their child’s hearing. Invariably, they say that their child’s hearing was tested by an ear specialist who reported that it was normal. Most autistic children have their hearing tested in the usual way: they wear headphones, and respond when they hear the varied volumes and frequencies of sound from the headphones. The parents are almost always told that their child has good hearing, but this misses the core of the autistic child’s hearing problem. It is not a question of the child hearing
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