My seven-year-old daughter has a sensory processing disorder. At home, we accommodate it without thinking about it (probably because I have a similar, but less severe issue). There's minimal background noise and distracting sounds and sights are stopped when conversation is going on.
It hadn't occurred to me until recently that it might be connected to why she refuses to watch shows at WDW. In the last week or so I've been trying to tease out what the issue is, and it seems to be two-fold. 1) She can't understand the words. 2) She gets pretty severe anticipation anxiety - she can't predict what might come next in the show, and that drives too much anxiety for her to cope with the usual sensory load.
Sitting closer to the front might help her understand the words, because the more clearly she can see the face of the person talking, the easier she finds it to make out the words. I think that in the bigger shows like FotLK, there isn't any "good" place to sit for that, though. And with animatronic actors, the mouths don't move accurately enough to help her. I know that WDW offers some kinds of assistive captioning. Is the quantity of devices significantly limited? Do they work well? Is the mismatch between the audio and the text severe? Are there other considerations that might make this a bad answer for her? Will we need a GAC to sit close to the front at any of the shows/attractions, or is just getting there early likely to be good enough?
I'm realizing (belatedly, of course) that a lot of her issues with WDW rides are anticipation anxiety and not being able to make out the words. Not knowing what's going to happen, and having so much to take in and sort out is overwhelming her. The new interactive queues may only make that worse. We leave in a few days, and I think I'll spend the time in the car on the way down doing over each attraction and strategizing ways to make it more manageable for her.
It hadn't occurred to me until recently that it might be connected to why she refuses to watch shows at WDW. In the last week or so I've been trying to tease out what the issue is, and it seems to be two-fold. 1) She can't understand the words. 2) She gets pretty severe anticipation anxiety - she can't predict what might come next in the show, and that drives too much anxiety for her to cope with the usual sensory load.
Sitting closer to the front might help her understand the words, because the more clearly she can see the face of the person talking, the easier she finds it to make out the words. I think that in the bigger shows like FotLK, there isn't any "good" place to sit for that, though. And with animatronic actors, the mouths don't move accurately enough to help her. I know that WDW offers some kinds of assistive captioning. Is the quantity of devices significantly limited? Do they work well? Is the mismatch between the audio and the text severe? Are there other considerations that might make this a bad answer for her? Will we need a GAC to sit close to the front at any of the shows/attractions, or is just getting there early likely to be good enough?
I'm realizing (belatedly, of course) that a lot of her issues with WDW rides are anticipation anxiety and not being able to make out the words. Not knowing what's going to happen, and having so much to take in and sort out is overwhelming her. The new interactive queues may only make that worse. We leave in a few days, and I think I'll spend the time in the car on the way down doing over each attraction and strategizing ways to make it more manageable for her.