Rain, rain, go away......

We finally are getting some rain, but for our little guy its a distinct terror. If it rains at night he'll wake up crying. If It's during the day he keeps asking, 'Does the rain hit the roof?' and is a walking bundle of nerves. He didn't want to go out of the house  but sinse we were going away this evening he walked outside to the van. Once outside he was a different person. He actually liked it. It was still drippy wet but not raining right then and at about 70 degrees it really was a nice variety to the dry dusty landscape we are used to. I'm curious, is there a reason rain would be so terifying?

[MJIthewriter]

Could it be he doesn't like the sound of it hitting against the roof or the side of the house?  When I first moved in with my grandma it took a while to get used to the way sleet or rain sounded hitting the roof and the side of the house.  It seemed really loud and almost like it were hail or something hard.  But that may be because I was especially sensitive to hearing it.

It doesn’t have the same pounding noise outside.

[Sally44]

I agree with MJ.  My son is also sound sensitive.  With loud noises he will initially cover his ears, but after a while he appears deaf.  I don't know if he has any control over that.  I've been told that because his system cannot cope with the noise that his brain effectively turns his hearing off.  I am not autistic, but I know that I frequently appear deaf because family members and my husband have to call my name a number of times or touch me to get my attention.  I also have some auditory processing difficulties as does my son.  Sudden unpredictable noise will scare my son to death whether it is a natural noise or whether it is a toy that makes noise.  He also has difficulties with the quantity of sound sources so he cannot bear the sound of many people singing but can tolerate one person singing.
As your child asked if the rain was hitting the roof I would think that that is the sound that was bothering him.  If you think about it, the noise is quite loud - almost like gravel being dropped on the roof.  And if it sounds like that maybe he thought it would hurt to be in the rain.

[Lonelymom]

I am still learning about autism but my son seems scared during the rain. He fears tornado's or violent storms of that nature. Maybe the rain hitting the roof makes the rain sound more intense then what it really was.