Not on RU-vid, for some reason (maybe because a lot of RU-vid is people talking directly to 'me' and that's a lot easier to follow) but definitely when watching some dramatisisation. I have subtitles on for everything dramatic.
The delays!!! The poorly annunciated words! When water is running or there’s wind! YES!! Might be unrelated, but if any of my ‘fave songs’ start playing I literally can’t focus on what anyone else is saying regardless of how serious the topic may be. This is what actually started my journey to finding out I’m autistic after 40yrs, during a convo with another mom where I broke down apologizing (in between verses) and she responded, “That’s okay. I’ve got 3 autistic daughters at home just like you.” 😳 Bless her!!!
Mate, this is so relatable! The fave songs bit, lol, loud background noises such as what you said, running water and wind! lol. Thank you so much for your comment, very validating and that lady was a blessing to you 🙂 All the very best
I’m a newly AuDHD diagnosed elder (age 64). This video literally blew my mind. The things I’m learning have been epic! I’ve been told I misunderstand 100% of what I hear. I’ve been fired for insubordination because of it, and had many misunderstandings and mistakes with my husband. I’ve learned to say, “so what I heard you say is” (fill in the blank). Every stinking time they say, “No. That’s not what I said”. So. Let me get this straight… This has been auditory processing disorder with autism my whole freaking time?! MIND. BLOWN. 😮
Yes -- conversations in groups are terrible. I usually ask for instructions and requests in writing if I can get them and use closed captions when they're available.
I learned American Sign Language because I was sure I was losing my hearing. It has come in handy though lol that's a good one 😂 but yes ASL is essential because I ended up marrying my cute husband who is Deaf and Autistic.
As a student audiologist thank you for making this video on APD. It's very helpful for people with APD or friends/family/coworkers to have this resource to understand what exactly is happening to the hearing of people with APD alongside how they can better communicate to them. The misconceptions that people with normative audiograms have normal hearing, alongside that everyone with hearing difficulties just needs the volume turned up on become the most counterproductive with cases of APD.
Orion, firstly thank you for your humour. I love that you just let it come out and even play with it. Very appreciated because not many people can actually make me laugh out loud so cuddos and thank you. Second, these examples are basically my lived experiences as well. I am not diagnosed but have been researching Autism for quite a few years and it sure explains everything for me. Having channel's like yours to glean tips, tricks and info from is in itself a source guidence and relief at better understanding myself and feeling less alone/odd. Thanks a whole bunch Man! ✋ ❤
Hi Orion, I'm so glad you made a video about this. I'm autistic and I also have APD. I've observed that one of the difficulties I have because of APD can cause frustration in other people, because they think I'm not listening to them when they speak to me- I tell them that I hear them, that I understand their words, and that I'm listening, but what they're saying to me sometimes isn''t registering in my brain. I also have the volume problem you mentioned- many people tell me that I'm shouting when I talk to them, but to me it doesn't sound like it. Over time, I have learned to avoid the loud talking by consciously talking more softly than I normally would, especially when I'm excited about something, so that I'm not accused of shouting.
I also have only 2 default voices : too soft or too loud. My most natural voice is the too loud voice I think. I use too soft at my job because it's quiet so people can hear me, and the too loud at home. Between those places, I try to use the right one but it's difficult to control which one will go out or how it will be heard…
@@Crouteceleste , that's how it is for me too. I'm also sometimes told that I speak too softly, in addition to speaking too loudly. I find my volume control hard to modulate as well. Thanks for your input!
@@joybringer7500 I can't count the number of times I've experienced the following: Me: speaks in my normal tone of voice Other person: What? Speak up, I can't hear you Me: repeats louder Them: What?! Me: repeats louder still Them: Quit mumbling, I still can't hear you Me: repeats as loud as I can Them: Well you don't have to yell!
@@sparrowelf, wow, that sounds a lot what i experience. I can't seem to get my volume right. So sorry you experience this too, but I'm glad to know I'm not the only one going through this.
This may be helpful for people with audio processing disorder: Carry a notebook and write down anything important as people talk. When I write information down, I usually remember it, and as an added bonus, I can look back through my notes, and I have almost all the information while most everyone else can not remember correctly what actually happened. This is a great way to ancor interactions in reality instead of remembered emotions and wishful thinking on their part. I gained a huge amount of credibility and reliability by talking notes. I blew everyone else out of the water.
This works very good for me. For example when in university I always took notes, allthough there was a PDF we could look at at home. Well no, I need my own words..also, if I dont take notes my brain tends to go an a nice journey and I daydream and I dont remember a word that was said
I think this is why I can’t spell. Nothing upset me so much as “it’s spelt the way it sounds”. That phrase almost made me cry. I also am the champion of creating mondegreens (misheard lyrics or poetry), for example, Tumbling Dice… I hear “the Jews in the crowd” instead of “the jewels in the crown”. Almost everyone does that once in a while. I do it all the time.
Looooooool can relate. I grew up in France, had to learn a whole new language. In secondary school I was pretty much fluent but struggled massively in literature (French). When I had trouble spelling a word the teacher would always tell me "it's spelt how it sounds". Like lady this is not my first language?! Had no idea at the time that I was ADHD because all my difficulties at school were put down to me being British.
@@smallforestdweller6999How frustrating! I got perfect marks in French (I’m in Canada) until grade 10 when the teacher insisted that there be virtually no English spoken. I could read it. I could write it. I could even speak it. But I could not hear it. I won an academic achievement award that year. I ran into the teacher after the award was given and she was really pissed off. Said I shouldn’t have got it because I went from a B to just passing in French. She thought I was lazy. I was too intimidated to try to explain it to her. Not that I knew what it was. No doubt she’s long dead but my God how I would like to talk to her now! 😂
@@gaylynyoung6387 Same, I would very much like to explain my difficulties to past teachers. I think some of them like being a bully though. Well done for such an achievement!
I keep having my mind blown lately. Only very recently (I'm 53) did I discover that I'm most likely on the autism spectrum. It was never on my radar; frankly, I was pretty ignorant about autism. The more I read/watch videos about autism, the more things resonate with me. This is a huge one! I've been dealing with auditory processing issues for as long as I can remember. Can't deal with group conversations, absolutely despise talking on the telephone (and will put off making phone calls as long as possible, and sometimes so long that it's to my detriment), constantly mishearing people, and yes - song lyrics! (I love that so many music apps have a feature to display song lyrics now; I'm only now learning some of the lyrics I couldn't make out in songs that I've loved for 30-40 years! I kept thinking there had to be something wrong with my hearing. I had my hearing checked at my ENT's office a little over a year ago and they said, nope, your hearing is perfect. Then WTF is wrong with me? It's really encouraging learning more about why I have many of the struggles I've had, that there's not something fundamentally _wrong_ with me, my brain just functions differently from "neurotypicals".
Yes, sooo relatable, almost everything! To pick out just one aspect: my learning ability. It nose-dived when I went from school to Uni. At first I couldn't explain it at all, starting to think I'd gone stupid overnight. But I now know one key factor: how things were presented. At school you learned stuff at many different (sensory) levels and you could ask questions at anytime. At uni I was then bombarded by 45 or 90 min lectures of some really complex, unfamiliar material at high speed and mostly in large, echo-ey auditoriums with sub-optimal sound systems. My head literally started to hurt about 15-20 minutes into every lecture, a feeling like my brain was about to explode. It felt impossible to ever grasp what was being presented and the horrid experience compounded my learning problem further.
Very similar experience for me, but rather than a headache I'd literally shut down and pass out. Completely sabotaged any attempt I'd make to pay attention and learn during lectures. Ended up getting booted after failing the second year twice. :(
My experience is that Auditory Processing Disorder is something that can happen later in life, too. I used to be very pleased with myself because I could easily understand accents (the exception was a strong Aussie accent!), but sometimes had issues with people who talked too fast. My hearing (physically) started to deteriorate in my 50's, and my suddenly realizing that I could no longer understand the dialogue on TV programs that I formerly had no problem understanding, lead me to having my hearing tested and my learning that I have a frequency loss problem. I now have hearing aids that help a great deal, but apparently having gone over a decade with uncorrected deteriorating hearing messed up my auditory processing and I now have the auditory processing disorder you discuss here. I now have trouble with conversations and absolutely hate telephone calls unless I'm listening to someone I've known for so many years that I can interpolate what they're saying. This explains why when I studied languages (four!) I had no problem with written language but understanding spoken language was difficult.
I’ve been tested. Exceptional hearing!!! Yet I must say I’m hard of hearing so I can get a repeat. Names! Ugg. Faces I remember names not so much. Usually I recall the first letter of the name. It’s all all about the processing 😢. Yes, ASL helps. Although deaf can have dismissive attitude towards hearing people. I found that I needed to ask my deaf friends to slow down on their signing I even need time to process that !!! I seriously do not fit anywhere. I’ve stopped trying. I actually do fit when I’m in nature so that’s my friend I guess 😊 I’m pretty good at lip reading since childhood. It all takes so much energy. I just don’t have the energy anymore. 60 yrs and I’m exhausted
@@resourcedragon I thought so too until one time I was at the supermarket with my friend and an announcement came up it hurt my ears I covered them, then asked my friend do you know what it said?! She told me what it was and then I knew it's a me and my ears problem 😅
One of my special interests is foreign languages, and even though in general I have always been very good in language learning, I have always struggled with listening, and no matter how much I practiced, my listening skills never really seemed to get better. My autism diagnosis + learning about Auditory Processing Disorder helped me accept my struggles and has probably saved me from giving up on my hobby. I'm slowly getting better at asking my teachers to write down new vocabulary to help me with my sound discrimination difficulties. From my school time I remember that at higher language learning levels listening exercises were made significantly harder by making them "more realistic" by e.g. adding background noise to two people talking. I failed at literally all of them, because how am I supposed to understand a foreign language in a situation where I wouldn't even understand my native language? If in real life I was asked to listen to two people talking in a noisy environment and afterwards answer questions on what they said, I'd either ask to hand me a transcript or something similar of the conversation, or to leave the environment and go to somewhere quiet. I hate being graded for lacking skills that I'm physically unable to acquire.
Machiery/electronics sometimes sound like metallic music to me. But if it makes like a repetitive or irregular pattern it ruins my day. Think a closed door trembling in its latch when theres a strong draft. Also does anyone else almost selectively muffle the outside world and escape into your thoughts and then if it’s quiet and you’re hyper fixated on something a loud sneeze can make you jump out of your skin!?
For me it’s definitely more noticeable when I’m trying to look someone in the eye. I’ve described it as when the adults talk in a Peanuts cartoon where they portray adult voices as just a trombone with one of those cup things over the horn making “womp womp womp” sounds instead of words. When I’m struggling to hear what someone says because I’m looking them in the eyes, I can still hear the noises coming out of their faces, but it’s like there are no words happening. When I was younger, I could often just “rewind” in my head and re-listen to what they said and then listen to the words and “hear” what they said after replaying the noises in my head, but as I’ve gotten older, I seem to have mostly lost that ability. It’s only recently after rediscovering autistic content on RU-vid that I’ve realized that the loss of that ability has also correlated to how difficult I find navigating everything else in the neurotypical world. I have a suspicion that it’s less that I’ve lost that ability rather than that I’ve lost the capacity to be able to use it at all. There have become so many other “important” demands out of my life that I can’t even begin to have those resources available to use anymore when I need them. They’re just “gone”, and when I try to bring them back and use them, I very quickly reach a conclusion that in order to be able to successfully use that skill again, I would have to give up a whole lot of other things that it’s become necessary to depend on for other, more important or crucial things.
I had an eye injury and for more than a decade i could not see the center of my field of view so i had to scan words back and forth to grasp them. My brain substituted some pretty funny guesses and for a second the guess would actually appear in my brain until the correction updated it. It reminds me of how hearing words is for me.
mainly the fatigue, because i had to mask it all for so long. since my burnout i've slowly learned to allow my kind of assertive side to take the reins too though, in order to prevent my environment from overwhelming me. it's difficult not to hurt other people's feelings that way though. healing really is messy stuff.
I came across a new brain retraining technique that eye doctors are doing. They use lenses with bent light and a bell to rewire the ears and eyes together. They said a lot of people with autism and people who have had concussions ears and eyes aren't wired properly in the brain. Once they rewire them properly, it makes some of these issues better for people with Autism. It's a really new thing.
It sounds a bit like a development of Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (EMDR). I've seen some things that say that there are studies that question the effectiveness of EMDR, so I'd be cautious about dropping a lot of dough on having something like that. It might not actually harm you (just your bank balance) but discrepancies between what's promised and what you actually get can be harmful.
I don't think it's EDMR. It's just rewiring the eyes and ear back together properly in the brain. I can't find anyone anywhere near where I live to do it at the moment anyways. I'm always careful. They had patients who actually went thru the rewiring and they said it was life changing. Like I said tho it's new. So I usually wait awhile until more people have done it so I know if it's safe. I've been in a brain retraining program for some chronic illnesses for over a year and I'm 90% recovered after being very sick for 21 years. Brain retraining is a powerful tool.
Somethig I've started doing to help me remember names is saying the person's name once they're introduced. Instead of, "Hey, nice to meet you," I'll say, "Hey, Paul. Nice to meet you." It's not completely foolproof but saying the name seems to help me recall it, especially because I'm having to consciously prompt myself to say the person's name.
I grew up in an environment that was always either so quiet you could hear a pin drop or insanely loud to the point that difficulty hearing was expected. So while I had my suspicions very early on, my hearing issues were easy to brush off. When I moved into a new environment and got a job at a busy coffee shop, I thought I was going deaf! Thankfully, I improved my auditory processing a lot during my time there, but I still struggle to get some people to accomodate my auditory processing needs and cannot go into extra hard-to-hear environments like trains and airports without an aide of some sort to translate announcements for me.
Thanks so much! I love other languages so, so but literally couldn’t learn them to much more than a few words phrases even when embedded in the language. As a young adult I worked on assembly lines with predominantly native Spanish and Tagalo speakers. After about 6 months surrounded by their conversations I found myself understanding when they were asking work related questions and then I’d speak up in English with the answer and subsequently freak them out. The ladies would ask how I understand them and I really couldn’t explain although I didn’t care to try or figure it out🤦♀️🤷♀️ A lil over 10 years ago, I moved to a predominantly white American area and I have had the hardest time of my life socially. I have missed all the diversity I was surrounded by but this leads me to an understanding as to why I’m just so unable to relate in my current surroundings. I really think it might have been why I never really questioned my differentness until recently because I was steeped and formed in a place where everyone was different in all sorts of ways. Wild 🤯 Thanks for reading stream of audhd consciousness 🌈✌️
I watch absolutely everything with subs, I retain things far better when i read information! Its like reverse dyslexia! I always hated school lessons because the information is just going in one ear and out the other, i need visual or written information
As a teacher with ASD, I struggle so much to remember instructions and then meet those deadlines. Sometimes someone will mention something and I think I have heard it for the first time but they assure my they have had the conversation before! It’s the Bain of my life!!
Thank you for bringing awareness to this topic! (CW: Toxic relationship) I wish I'd known about APD a few years ago when I was still in my last relationship. Back then, I was already relying on subtitles for everything, though I didn't know the underlying cause, and my ex used to make fun of me for it (the relationship was unhealthy for reasons more than one...). It's painful and infuriating to know that I was basically made fun of/not taken seriously/called a burden because of this disability. For the record, I don't think that having the correct language for it would've changed anything, as my ex also used to make fun of my PTSD symptoms even though she knew of my diagnosis, but at least I would've known that I was right to accommodate for my APD and whatever "burden" it placed on her (it was really just about looking for subtitles for movies we wanted to watch together) was solely her problem to deal with, and not mine.
Definitely relate to a lot and some I see in my fiance, we are pretty sure he’s audhd. I needed the giggles 😆thanks Orion. Liked the “stars of Orion” comment
Love this, thank you! To add on to the suggestion of noise-cancelling headphones - I'm a big fan of electronic ear muffs. Being earmuffs (PPE) they will reduce all noise and are very comfortable, but each ear cup has a microphone on the outside and speaker inside, which allows the wearer to "turn up" the volume of their surroundings if they feel the need to. Most are tuned specifically for human vocal frequencies too, which can make listening to conversation much more comfortable. They also only amplify sounds that are under ~80-85 db and turn off for anything uncomfortably loud, and the speakers are almost perfectly placed for people with auditory processing issues. I own 5 different pairs, and the model I like best is the 3M Peltor Sport Tac. They are mostly meant for shooting and hunting, but, as they are PPE, they will be a tax deduction for many occupations. They are also really rugged and tough, and will survive the most clumsy of users. Turn the electronics off if you are feeling overstimulated and need the world to be a bit quieter, or turn them up if you want to take in the natural sounds around you (you will be able to hear things you never knew were there).
How my APD manifests (was born with ASD..) - let me know, if this sounds familiar: - Others speaking means I hear "blablabla" and after their sentence I need to invest energy in my brain to guess the words and guess what the sentence probably was. It took a long time to get it to over 95% matching, but takes huge amounts of energy and drains me quickly. And when drained, my accuracy drops completely. - I often don't understand people on the phone, even worse, phone conferences with some tiny speaker on the table. Had embarrasing situations when I had to lead the conference occationally, because I just couldn't understand, no matter how much I tried to.. - Used headphones and turned up the volume really loud, that way 1:1 conversations were almost perfect ! This actually saved energy, because I didn't need to guess as much. Still costs a ton more energy than NT people spend on it.. - Sometimes answering people and they get silent or withdraw - later you find out, you misunderstood and answered to something completely different and they thought, you were nuts or pychologically challenged or stupid to answer the wrong way - when really you just misinterpreted 2 or 3 words.. - When on low energy, I can't focus in meetings on what people say. It was often very important and I needed to listen, but every few seconds I lost connection and drifted, I just had no energy to stay "tuned" to what was said. (only happens on low energy). Huge impact on job and also in private ! - you sit with multiple people, all of a sudden, 2 people start a different conversation, while the person you are talking to is waiting for you to continue, but you can't, because next to you those other 2 are talking. You need to wait because you can neither speak nor focus and listen while next to you, there's another conversation.. - you enjoy a movie with a friend, the friend starts a conversation all of sudden. I tell him, TV or Talk, not both. This is actually annoying. Why watch a movie but then just talk and not understand anything at all.. !? - not sure if this is APD or just ASD, but putting in tight ear plugs to block out ALL sounds, is like a vacation. I feel so wonderful and relaxed when all noises are gone, at least for a few hours per day (if I can afford to). Anybody else ? Is this typical, or are there many more variations ?
Thanks for this. This is all correct. I thought it was a language barrier for ever as English is my second language but no, I ve struggled with this all my life. Ppl think I’m slow n stupid cose I mishear, mis pronounce, can’t hear.. can be very frustrating when people get upset. That encourages me to isolate and stay single as it’s all too much together with all other challenges. I’ll show this to my teen boys hopefully they’ll understand me better cose now I have proof it’s a real thing!! 😂❤ ciao Orion thanks x
Thanks for this Orion i went through the hearing test to find I have perfect hearing it took 10 years to work out it was APD and I had autism .... Not being able to hear people in group setting.... Wind.... Leaf blowers... Mishearing words oft! ❤
24:08 - This is probably one ofmy biggest current fights with the world... LET ME LIVE IN A QUIET APARTMENT. I need to live in a quiet apartment. The noises from outside are driving me crazy! (no joke, I been hospitalized for a mega shutdown due to dog barks)
"You may understand what I'm saying, you may not" - as I'm reading the closed captions on the video 🤣 I have never been able to understand verbal instructions and often need people to repeat things four or five times only to still not understand them. Some days are much worse than others. I remember I used to get hauled to the doctor for hearing tests every month as a kid and it always came back perfect! One thing I didn't realize was part of APD was my reaction to unexpected noises (I usually jump, clap my hands over my ears and start crying). I thought that was just the autism lol. Nice to see a secondary reason for it because that one is not easy to mask! Edit to add: Flare Calmers are AMAZING for helping with APD. More than anything else they seem to make my brain prioritize the sounds of human speech over background noise, and I always wear them during long meetings or when going out to eat.
I grew up as one of 8 children and we were probably all autistic, although this was long before autism was a "thing." We were always loud. At meals, we would carry on three or four conversations and participate in all of them. But we did also mishear words constantly, leading to much hilarity. Something like misheard song lyrics is all I can think of at the moment. We did that, too. There's a song from the 60s called "Groovin' " that has the line, "life will be ecstacy, you and me endlessly groovin'." I was complaining to one of my sisters because it took me years not to hear it as "...you and me and Leslie..." and I realized as I spoke that she had always heard it that way, too, and didn't know it was "endlessly" until I said something....
One of my relatives who did always speak as if they had a mouthful of marbles, asked a question once and I had to just repeat it like I heard it. "Is that crad, or naptun, or vengurry?" Allegedly, in English, this is "is that pan under that pan clean or dirty?" If you say so.... They were also the sort of person who specifies "that pan under that pan" as if that's the most efficient way to describe it.
Honestly I can’t listen to many people with accents and although I hear your accent I still understand you even without reading your lips and that is quite impressive
Oh, goodness... this is me, all the way. I've had these issues for years - not being able to understand song lyrics, "skimming" my way through movies when I don't catch all of the dialogue, and needing instruction repeated, because for me, spoken words "disappear". Before I suspected I might be autistic, my bosses would have to tell me multiple times how to do something before it would stick. I asked another supervisor if he would make up a checklist for me so that I would be sure to perform every task, and not leave anything undone - that worked brilliantly! (Is it any surprise that he has an autistic child?) When I have a companion in my car, I cannot have the radio on, because singing and conversation at the same time will cancel each other out. And, I have been watching DVDs and streamed movies with subtitles for *years*, because it helps my comprehension so much more. In fact, I have the subtitles on all the time when I'm on RU-vid, so they were already on when I watched you, Orion! Thank you for helping me yet again, as I navigate my autism experience! When I understand my autistic differences, it helps me to feel validated, and a little less defective.
I lived in Brazil during a critical period in my speech development, later than you might think, in my late teens and early 20s. I had attempted to learn German in high school but could not do it, not in the memorize-a-phrase way that school instruction tends to be. I had a nine-week course in Portuguese prior to going to Brazil and arrived there with almost no ability to remember anything I had learned. However, as often has been the case in my life regarding the ability to remember things in context, I was able to pick up patterns in the way Brazilians spoke. All of a sudden, the rules made more sense, and I was able to pick up the language very quickly in that setting. Working on volunteer projects with everyday people (a gente), I spoke Portuguese so well that I was often mistaken for a Brazilian from some other part of Brazil, surprising people when I revealed that I was a North American. The interesting thing about it was the way I adapted my speech patterns to Brazilians, not just vocabulary and grammar. By learning to hear how they spoke and empathizing with how their mouths worked to make the accents they used, I was able to recreate Portuguese the way they spoke it and therefore understand it better. After my life erupted in my late 30s, and I found myself back on the dating scene, confused and not understanding what the problem was with me, I experimented a lot with the kind of people I dated. I even dated people who did not speak my language. Because Portuguese is not much spoken in the United States, I had gradually been teaching myself Spanish by coming into contact with many Spanish-speaking people. For a short time, I dated a person who was on vacation from Mexico in the United States, a college-educated Mexican woman who did not want to live in the United States and was happy to try new experiences while she explored the country for a year. She spoke no English and really didn’t want to learn it. She had a communication degree and was perfectly willing to correct my speech in Spanish, recreating for me the experience I had in Brazil when I learned Portuguese. Because of the similarity to Portuguese, not in accent but in grammar, I didn’t have to learn much new grammar, but rather used my skill to hear patterns in speech and therefore recreate Spanish the way it was spoken to me. In six months, I learned to speak Spanish fluently, to the surprise of her and all of her friends. I now speak Spanish regularly, and I am often complimented by people from all over Central and South America on the quality of my speech, something that is unusual for a gringo in the United States to speak Spanish well. Nothing explains this unique ability to pick up languages like that, except for this auditory adaptation that I use to be understood and to understand others. The interesting thing is that I started to recognize, after I was diagnosed, that I actually start speaking with other people’s American accents, whether they speak with a southwestern drawl or a California valley accent. I actually have to check myself not to do this so that I won’t be accused of cultural appropriation or offend somebody who thinks I am making fun of them. I also have to watch this because it is masking to the nth degree, the very definition of masking. I actually experience extreme exhaustion when I am speaking Spanish or Portuguese for a prolonged period.
I start copying people's accents without meaning to. I really pissed off a Hispanic woman. Though I do speak with a slight Spanish accent because I grew up playing with Hispanic kids in Santa Fe. But being around a woman from my hometown brought the accent out even more and she got very angry at me. It was embarrassing. I wish I didn't do that. But I often don't realize what I am doing.
@@Catlily5 my ex father in law would ask me to repeat myself when I was attempting to stop doing that with his old guy western accent, but when I just spoke to him naturally, unintentionally copying his accent, he always understood me
Most of these fit my perception. While due to age and musical activities I've experienced very slight hearing reduction and tinnitus, my hearing overall is pretty good, even better than many people my age or younger (56, btw). I'm actually hyper sensitive to sound/noise, light, touch, smell. I frequently use earbuds with ambient sound turned *on* to give me moderate filtering during my rather public workday. Learning my sense parameters has taken away quite a lot of the mystery, and thus the negative self-criticism
APD. Thank you for putting a name to such a specific thing I've been experiencing my whole life. I always wonder how people can hear anything on PA's because it's just muffled sounds to me. I wore a hearing aid between junior and high school years but stopped wearing it as I got older, mostly due to how often I would misplace it. Also subtitles on everything or I probably won't watch it.
I am not autistic, but I experience many of these points. It's like my brain just finds it so difficult to process the words coming out of other people's mouths. I hate trying to listen to someone talking when there is a lot of loud background noise and echos or reverberations. I don't like having to make phone calls because I find it so hard to understand what the other person is saying and if they have a very thick accent of any kind, I have to keep asking them to repeat over and over again because I just can't find sensical words in the noises coming out to my ears. I have such a huge difficulty with these points. Thanks for the info Orion 👍
I was diagnosed with 2 different types of Central Auditory Processing Disorder alongside my Asperger’s diagnosis. The first one is that I hear like a dropped phone call, with my mind automatically filling in the blanks, often times more wrong than right. The second is that unlike everybody else, who mind will automatically lower the incoming volume of any background noise throughout daily life, I hear everything at the same volume all the time.
When I have a bad day, I can literally hear EVERYTHING. The cat driving a block away, the wind, the flagpole stirring from the wind, the birds in the air, the neighborhood dogs barking, the wind in the trees, myself walking etc and it becomes too much!! I have to sleep with earbuds or I can’t sleep. I can’t tune out clocks ticking for example or the fridge in the background.
1) I came to the conclusion that I'm autistic a few months ago at age 50 after 18 months of accelerating research & introspection 2) I was also diagnosed with hearing loss in kindergarten; a few years ago I had my hearing tested for the first time in a few decades and it's a significant enough loss now that I should be wearing hearing aids (I'm on Disability and can never afford them). 3) I *also* think I may have APD, but the things that make me think that, did not exist for me when I was a kid? I have an incredibly vivid memory of being at my family's for dinner (mom & brother) with my then boyfriend, and after supper we were sitting in the living room - as normal - chatting animatedly about who knows what number of topics - as normal - with the TV on in the background - as normal... and I lost the ability to stay "on top" of the conversation. I could make out a few words, and then it was all a jumble in my head. I'd try to shake it off and re-focus, and I'd make out a few more words, and then it would disintegrate into a jumble again. It was so striking and different that I even commented on it; I told them what was happening and everyone stopped talking and looked at me in confusion because the TV wasn't even as loud as it sometimes is in these situations. I think the responses were something like "well that's weird.... " and then the conversation went on (we didn't even turn the TV off!) with me basically trying to look like I was following but just tuning out. It's only happened more and more, and in a more and more unworkable way, in the decades since that. And yeah, phone calls (or zoom, except that at least I can lip read there) are the literal worst. Any time I've brought it up with doctors or psychiatrists, they dismiss it because there's documented hearing loss. So my questions for the comments section are: - can you develop APD all of a sudden one day without there being some triggering event (by which I mean, like, a stroke, or a blow to the head, or idk, a viral infection or something)? or - is it possible that I've had APD all my life but it's pretty minor and I was always able to just concentrate my way through it? Is "minor APD" a thing? But then as my hearing deteriorated little by little as I aged (even just, like, aging as in growing up), all of a sudden I got to a level of hearing loss where it started causing problems I couldn't concentrate-my-way-through, with the APD? 16:00 with Laurel's question - oh wow, yeah. Even in that very first experience I described above, I've ALWAYS described it as "it's like someone's jamming the signal in my brain" or "it's like there's a screen of TV static in my brain that's hiding what I'm trying to listen to, except the static isn't actually making any sound" (descriptions I used lonnnng before I ever heard about APD, which I only learned about in the past 6 months) but "tuning a radio station, but some stations come in clearly and others can't ever be made satisfyingly clear" is another really good analogy to me. I guess maybe because it meshes so well with my TV static analogy.
I am deaf and autistic. When I was young, I could hear, but not understand. I thought it strange I couldn’t understand specific words. APD was not something my family or I knew. My mother thought I had hearing issues and I got tested several times throughout my childhood. I had speech therapy at 4. I was fine until I got tested again at 16. I was losing my high frequency sounds, but could still understand conversation and music. Hearing got worse over time until I became completely deaf by 47-48. Now, a couple years later, I have cochlear implants. I can hear again, but sometimes I still have difficulty with certain words, or listening to multiple conversations. I believe I have APD, and being autistic makes communication even harder. I have to 100% focus on whoever I am talking with.
Definitely the delayed hearing thing - I usually miss the first part of the conversation, unil my brain tunes in. Or someone will say something unintelligible, and a few seconds later I'll "re-hear" it and it makes sense.
I've started emailing places that normally require you to ring them (e.g. government departments) and telling them about my autism and that I struggle on the phone. It's a good way to be able to avoid the issues with phones.
I love watching the Australian Veterinarian youtube channel Bondi Vet in Bondi Sydney. There is an Australian woman who works at my gym and I was so excited to talk to her about the show and I went to say the word Bondi and I guess I mixed it up unintentionally. I thought I said Bond "I" but I guess I said something entirely different. I was completely embarrassed. I love learning new languages. I love Australia as a matter of fact.
I talk really fast and find myself matching others' accents. My voice and accent changed after all of the people I met. I recently tried to learn Nigerian. That was interesting.
While I am deeply deeply saddened to hear you have been treated so badly by NT folks in the past, please try not to paint us all with the same brush, just as ND folks don't like and cannot be put in one box and their actions blamed on autism. Autism comes as a spectrum as we all know and to assume the people mistreating you are NT is wrong, you don't know they may be facing challenges and issues themselves. To say NT people is to generalise quite disheartenly. I am NT (as far as I know) .. my husband and 2 children are ND and glorious characters for it .. I wouldn't change them for the world. I've seen the absolute discrimination and isolation suffered by and dealt to ND people BUT I've also seen the acceptance, the celebration and to honest, the people that just don't care and take them as they come .. no labels needed. Please don't bunch NT all into a box .. we are just as diverse as the ND community and there are bad apples in both. I fear you may have found more than your fair share though and this saddens me.
I relate to this more than I should. Just today at work, someone asked me if I was a lead but I just couldn’t understand the lead part. I misinterpret some words in songs as well as movie dialogue (looking at you Tinkerbell movie. Clank)
I resonate with all of these. Give me verbal instructions, with more than one step…I’m lost. Always been an issue, which usually just caused me to laugh at myself. “Why can’t I comprehend this word”. And, It’s often a person’s name, which gives me trouble, especially if there’s an accent involved. Doing research last year, and I listened to a name ten times, and still couldn’t register it.
13:35 Oh was NEVER funny to me. I remember one of the ways I taught myself to speak is to sing songs. A whole cartoon theme song I could sing except for one line. My brother happened to walk in the room on the one line I got wrong, He yelled at me "If you gonnna sing it, sing it RIGHT". And I stopped myself from singing my favorite cartoon theme song from Tiny Toon Adventures. I was so young, Thinking on this old story I feel like I am about to cry.
Is this the one where I put on my glasses to hear better? 😏😁 In live recording, they have a seven second delay before the sound is broadcast, in case anything needs to be bleeped. I have noticed that my brain holds a certain amount of what I hear for a short time until I can process the meaning. It doesn't always work, but it has saved me in conversation a great many times.
About noise cancelling tools, I have tried Loop earplugs in their "Engage" range. They are little in-ear contraptions, designed to lower background noises so you can concentrate on your conversations when you're in restaurants, bars etc. Very comfortable, stylish, inexpensive and have no electronic component, BUT. As much as they lower the background noises, they also amplify nearby voices and your own voice. So as a result, I could not concentrate on my meal because I could hear the next table's conversation very clearly, and my friend could not understand me when I was talking because I was speaking too softly in reality, when in my own ears I could hear myself talking loudly… Maybe I'll have to try some Active Noise Cancelling earplugs instead ?
My antenna is attuned to peripheral sounds, like birds squawking, dogs barking, sounds of minutiae, rather than the humdrum of voices. Means I am always trying to work out which expression to have on my face to not give away that I have lost track of the conversation.
Some autists are musicians and can process sounds far better than nts. I can- and yet I miss hear people all the time! The most bizarre effect I have is a silent echo... someone says something, I hear the sound but didn't get the meaning so I go "eh?" But as they are repeating themselves, the meaning of what they said the first time comes in. I have no idea what this is but it's effing handy. If I'm If in my own little world, then someone abusers me if ignoring them, I access this dead space in my brain, all the meaning is there patiently waiting for me to be paying attention ... I then repeat word for word what they have been saying for the last 5 minutes... frustration central for them!
I'm cracking up because, as someone who's just learning she's AudDHD (is that how it's spelled?), I've found lots of ways to maneuver the world that feel comfortable for me beforehand: I write everything down, I avoid all the things and people that trigger my uncomfortable responses (as much as I can control). But mostly I'm more stubborn than a mule, and VIGOROUSLY push back at everything and everyone that gives me crap for not being "normal". My stubbornness has been my way to advocate for myself and apparently it's done me well 😂
I am reminded of an experiment i heard on Science Friday. They played the end of a song and ask play it again and ask if you heard a difference. I did not. And most of those who didn't her the difference weren't really into music all that much. Turns out our brians justt filled in the blank or missing notes or corrected the wrong ones.
I was visiting a new place for work. At the coffee machine, someone was talking in french. I looked up at him with dead fish eyes and before I was able to understand that he was actually talking to me, he asked me "do you speak English?". My mother tongue is French... I still don't know if I should laugh or cry 🥲
oooh... verbal instructions. that's me. I built elevators for 3 years.. lots of instructions and new things. I kept a tablet in my pocket and write things down, had more than one guy get annoyed by that. "do this, do that, then do this." ... in one ear and out the other. apparently I never listen. heard that one more than once. many many things were just too much for me, even though I am a mechanical person who builds things and uses tools at home. got laid off after 3 years and never went back. auditory memory and peoples names ... that's me as well. plus a fear of calling someone the wrong name
i usually turn captions on if there's an option. but YT's captions can be peculiar. i had this video run auto caption but i turn it off when i realise it is interrupting the word auditory processing disorder "APD" to "a PD". though i can't say if i have ADHD but i got distracted during my listening and when i was watching some visual, Orion's video playing but nothing is being heard by me. it is also challenging to even look at him, without caption that looking at his lips feels odd at some point. request to repeat is a common stance for verbal communication. i always ask to text/message instead of calls. but plenty of folks disrespect my choice of communication. i isolate my hearing with any form of ear piece; whether if it is sound cancelling, a piece of earplug, earphones or headphones. the excess sounds or words gets garbled or ignored. also, i hate it when i don't wear it in a loud environment, it feels overwhelming and unbearable. even if it's just regular traffic. learning language is a struggle but also something i like to have for communication sake. growing up consuming american media, made me somewhat familiar with english with american and british. australian accent took awhile for me to get used to, but any heavier tone, pitch. reverb; it takes me a moment to comprehend. but i do enjoy acapella; from the higher tone to bassier boom. whether i properly register the lyrics or not is a different thing. 😂
(I collect data, in the field) At work, a manager said he needed me to upload my data to the network, in a certain file type, which was one I couldn’t even look at. It made me upset. I ignored their demands for weeks. One day, he wrote the extension on a notepad (.dbx), and to my shock, I realized that I had every dbx file, and had simply misunderstood three letters, straight from his mouth, several times. Seeing it made it click.
Does anyone else get super frustrated when you were told a meeting was going to be about a certain topic with a certain desired outcome…but then the actual meeting veers off track?! You’ve done your homework but it was all for nothing. And people go off on tangents, then people start speaking over one another and it all just gets to be too much. I end up getting angry and just want to retreat to my cold, dark, quiet cave (aka home) to self-soothe.
12:29 Explains why Hospitals, police, nurses, paramedics.... will do some bad things to me, because they misread my tone. Tone? What tone. I dont have any. "Yes you do, now stop giving me that attitude or we are going to have to lock you up." says the authority figures.... How everyday living is terrifying if I am expected to speak.
I still have an auditory processing disorder (APDs) known S integration disorder that makes it difficult for me to combine information that is given in more than one medium like fast auditory lectures combined with images/photos of different types of art on the projector projected in front of the classroom that commonly has taken place in college/university in person art history course for example and video tutorials that has a person speaking what to do in a particular app/software while clicking on the screen of a computer that just shows a computer screen only with a mouse clicking around and no person is showing at all in these video tutorials that teach how to do anything in any apps/softwares that I have issues with mostly in a weak auditory working memory. My weak auditory working memory causes me problems when I am trying to take notes during a fast auditory lecture because I cannot remember what the instructor said long enough to be able to type or write down what was said during that fast auditory lecture, My weak auditory working memory also makes it difficult for me to take previously learned concepts/information and apply it to different situations. Finally my weak auditory working memory makes it difficult for me to write books, essays and papers because I cannot keep what I want to write or type or need to write or type long enough in my brain to be able to get it written down or typed before it gets stuck in my brain or before getting what I need to write or type down.
I could never make out words in songs or crowded places but i can echolocate cars three lanes deep on a bicycle without using my eyes. Its like i cant turn down sound input; its always on full so any distracting sounds are clamoring noise...while i can hear tires on pavement with precision in spite of traffic. Its not in the same range.
It's worse with my Englsih husband. Been with him 4 years and still can't understand half of what he says... Your accent is no problem. I am American from Southern California.
I do longsword training. We're in a gym with no air conditioning, just giant industrial fans everywhere. We're wearing fencing helmets. I can't hear anything you're saying unless you're within 3 feet and facing my ears. I had to sit at my instructor's feet to hear him yesterday.
Huh, is this why, if I'm not paying really close attention to people's words, it literally sounds like gibberish? There are also certain types of music that instantly disregulate and anger me; usually, because it's either too much noise all over the place or it literally doesn't make any sense lyric-wise
I don't have trouble with auditory processing at all. Now... why I'm exhausted all the time and what's up with the construction noises from my neighbour for past 3 weeks??
Wait; is the echo not normal? Can other people actually keep talking on the phone when they can hear their own voice mirrored back with a few seconds lag? Because if so... Well, that explains a lot. I've assumed that I had auditory processing issues, but I had no clue the echo could be related
