Keep different reactions visible
Read the ten-item symptom sum, the separately retained fear response and sound-linked attention, bodily reactions and avoidance without a clinical label.
Read raw sums with the exact administered items, missing-answer rules and source version. These are not diagnostic categories, population norms or a measure of treatment success.
Reactions to a specified context
- The symptom prompts refer to the particular bothersome sounds you considered at the initial question, rather than every noise or an abstract sensitivity trait. The original wording asks about reactions when exposed; it does not impose a blanket recent-month recall window on these items. Reflect on existing experience without seeking a sound or putting yourself in an uncomfortable situation.
- The source clarification distinguishes these sounds from ones that are bothersome only because of loudness or physical pain. That distinction does not establish a diagnosis, and several kinds of sound intolerance can overlap. If you cannot apply the wording to your situation, an explicit unscored choice preserves the uncertainty instead of forcing an account that seems to fit the questionnaire.
What the ten-item sum contains
- Items one, two and four through eleven contribute to the symptom sum. They include irritation, anger, disgust, urges to leave or block a sound, aggressive urges, perceived control, attentional capture, immediate bodily responses and avoidance. These are varied reports. Their inclusion in a source sum does not turn them into ten independent conditions or make any one response a character judgment.
- Each numerical frequency choice is scored directly from zero to four, with no reverse items. All ten must be numerical for a raw sum from zero to forty. Ten sometimes responses give twenty. The range is an arithmetic property of this key, not a percentage, a severity band or a comparison with how most people would respond.
Fear is asked but not added
- Item three asks about fear or panic. The source retains it in the form while excluding it from the seventeen-item total and ten-item symptom score. On this website its chosen response remains visible, without inventing a new fear subscale. Raising only that item does not raise the symptom sum or the overall total.
- The exclusion is a particular scoring decision, not a statement that an experience is insignificant or belongs to a different diagnosis. The website does not classify a person from this item, and it cannot decide whether fear, anger and a bodily reaction share the same cause. A description can matter in a professional conversation even when it contributes no points.
Distinguish attention, urge and action
- A sound drawing attention is different from an urge to leave, and an urge is different from an action actually taken. The source wording about aggressive urges is a question about experience; it is not an instruction or permission to act against someone. None of the answers reveals what another person intended by making a sound.
- For example, someone might recall strong annoyance during a shared activity but no urge to lash out. Another person may remember arranging distance from a sound without the same bodily response. Reading the individual answers retains these distinctions, whereas treating a single sum as a complete personal portrait would erase them.
An unscored response stays unscored
- If any of the ten scored symptom items is marked cannot judge, no relevant opportunity or prefer not to answer, this sum is withheld. The other numerical answers are not averaged, scaled up or used to fill the gap. You can still read every guide, and a fully numerical impact group can be displayed separately.
- All presented prompts need explicit choices before completing the longer branch, including the separate fear item and added unscored choices. Blank means you have not decided yet, not that the experience never occurs. If only the fear item is unscored and all seventeen scored items are numerical, the source sums remain available without substituting a fear value.
What a practical next step can use
- You can privately describe one ordinary situation in terms of the sound, the reaction and what happened next, without replaying the sound or collecting evidence against another person. The aim is accurate description, not proving a label. The website does not prescribe exposure, sound masking, ear protection, psychotherapy or a method for changing the score.
- If reactions are distressing or disrupt everyday activity, a qualified professional familiar with sound-related difficulties can help consider the actual circumstances. Support does not depend on reaching a number here. A low or unavailable sum cannot rule out other difficulties, while a large sum cannot establish a cause, a diagnosis or which intervention would be appropriate.
Use and attribution limits
- This is a web adaptation of DVMSQ v1.5, Copyright 2022 Zachary J. Williams, with a new unvalidated Chinese working translation. The adapted questionnaire content is available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Added unscored choices, private handling of free-text requests and omitted optional material are disclosed; the website does not claim author endorsement or unchanged-form validation.
- Responses stay in page memory and clear when you refresh, change language, leave or retake. No sound list, physical description or identity is collected. Public sharing contains all three complete guides without responses or sums, and the optional separate sensory-processing entry has its own ninety-two-item scope rather than verifying this symptom record.