V important new research into extreme sensitivity to noise, in autistic people (hyperacusis).
Most autistic people suffer this.
It's a major barrier to everyday life, jobs, education, everything.
At the moment, little to no research is happening.
Why?
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Zachary_Williams19/publication/346356739_Prevalence_of_Decreased_Sound_Tolerance_Hyperacusis_in_Individuals_with_Autism_Spectrum_Disorder_A_Meta-analysis/links/5fbec785458515b7976f6873/Prevalence-of-Decreased-Sound-Tolerance-Hyperacusis-in-Individuals-with-Autism-Spectrum-Disorder-A-Meta-analysis.pdf
Instead of spending $billions stopping autistic people showing pain from this (often mistaken as 'challenging behaviour'), we could spend the money on finding out the cause and doing something about it.
As the researchers say, "...additional research is desperately needed".
Meantime, top tips from this household:
Best noise cancelling headphones you can afford. We use the Bose and Sony ones, which are amazing (but a lot of money...).
Get acoustic glass in windows for a room in the house to cut out loads of noise from outside (also not cheap...).
But if there's budgets available for either thing, it may improve quality of life and outcomes pretty much instantly. Really, really worth it.
(Unlike a lot of other complete nonsense done to autistic people at up to ÂŁ500,000 a year a person).
Related top tip - what are you lighting rooms with?
If it's fluorescent, or compact fluorescent, swap it for something else and see what happens re 'behaviour'..
Here's the 2 min video that helps explain both things. Turn sound up as high as you can bear https://vimeo.com/52193530 
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