Take out earplugs
From one second to the next, the sound is back — the kitchen radio, the siblings, the traffic behind the window. The visual support below shows the order in which to take the plugs out and let the ears reopen to noise.
♀Removing earplugs
A smiling girl with voluminous curly hair removing blue earplugs from both ears with her fingers.
About this visual support
The earplugs have done their job and softened the volume, but now they come out — and with them the full sound stage returns at once. For a noise-sensitive child that transition is not neutral. Stepping back into the noise can be harder than staying inside it, because the contrast is so wide.
A visual schedule gives the child an in-between step. First a picture of the plug being removed, then a picture of the room at a quieter setting — radio low, door still closed for a moment — and only then the normal environment. The return becomes a sequence instead of a shock, and the child can read which step is coming before the volume changes.
A concrete tip: build in a quiet zone of about five minutes between step one and step two. No questions, no TV, just stillness while the ear adjusts. If you want the same sequence every time, you can build it in Routined and let the child tap on to the next picture themselves when ready.