英语阅读：蝉鸣扰人，自闭症谱系障碍者的夏日挑战

Shhhooo. Wee-uuu. Chick, chick, chick. That’s the sound of three different cicada species. For some people, those sounds are the song of the summer. Others wish the insects would turn it down. The cacophony can be especially irritating for people on the autism spectrum who have hearing sensitivity.

Warren Rickly, 14, lives in suburban south St. Louis County, Mo. Warren, who has autism, was at the bus stop recently waiting for his younger brother when the sound of cicadas became too much to bear.

“He said it sounds like there’s always a train running next to him,” his mother, Jamie Reed, said.

Warren told her the noise hurt.

Starting this spring, trillions of the red-eyed insects crawled their way out of the ground across the Midwest and Southeast. It’s part of a rare simultaneous emergence of two broods — one that appears every 13 years, the other every 17.

The noisy insects can be stressful. People with autism can have a sensitivity to texture, brightness, and sound.

“I think the difference for individuals with autism is the level of intensity or how upsetting some of these sensory differences are,” said Dr. Rachel Follmer, a developmental and behavioral pediatrician at Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago.

“It can get to the extreme where it can cause physical discomfort,” she said.

When a large group of cicadas starts to sing, the chorus can be as loud as a motorcycle. Researchers at the university of Missouri-St. Louis this year crowdsourced cicada noise levels as high as 86 decibels, about as loud as a food blender.

嘶嘶嘶。嗡嗡嗡。唧唧唧。这是三种不同蝉的叫声。对一些人来说，这些声音是夏日的歌声。其他人则希望这些昆虫能降低音量。对于听觉敏感的自闭症谱系障碍者来说，这种刺耳的噪音尤其令人烦恼。

沃伦·里克利，14岁，住在密苏里州圣路易斯县南部郊区。沃伦患有自闭症，最近他在公交车站等弟弟时，蝉鸣声变得难以忍受。

“他说这就像总有一列火车在他旁边运行，”他的母亲杰米·里德说。

沃伦告诉她噪音很刺耳。

今年春天开始，数以万亿计的红眼昆虫在中西部和东南部破土而出。这是两种不同种类的蝉罕见的同步出现——一种每13年出现一次，另一种每17年出现一次。

这些嘈杂的昆虫会让人感到压力。自闭症患者可能对纹理、亮度和声音敏感。

“我认为自闭症患者的区别在于这种感官差异的强度或令人不安的程度，”芝加哥卢里儿童医院的发展和行为儿科医生雷切尔·福尔默博士说。

“这可能会达到极端程度，导致身体不适，”她说。

当一大群蝉开始鸣叫时，其合唱的音量可以与摩托车一样大。密苏里大学圣路易斯分校的研究人员今年通过众包的方式收集到蝉鸣声高达86分贝，与食物搅拌机的声音差不多大。