Imagine this:
You walk into a room filled with people you know. You can feel the excitement in the air as you walk group to group, making your way around the room. After a few moments, though, you realize that everyone else is speaking a different language. You can understand bits and pieces of what is being said but not enough to follow the story lines. You also realize that you can hear all the clattering of plates as they are set on tables, all the sloshing of drinks, the *click click click* of shoes as they walk across the floor. It’s okay because these people are your friends and you are happy to be there. You smile, and pretend you can understand and hope that no one asks you a question. But they do. Then you give them an answer that doesn’t quite match up to the conversation. Everyone starts laughing. But it’s okay because these people are your friends.
You might think that is a little stressful but do-able.
Now imagine this:
You are at the store. When you walk in, you can immediately hear the *beep* of the scanners at the cashier’s counters. You can hear the buzzing of the over head lights. You can hear the *k-thunk k-thunk* of the shopping carts with messed up wheels. A lady walks up to you, “how are your does today” she asks. Um, excuse me? You think. You just walk away, no idea how to respond. As you walk through the store, again it sounds like everyone else is speaking a different language. Another store employee walks up and asks, “…helpful…find…everything…” Again, you are very confused. Not only could you not understand what was asked, your face becomes bright red when you realize you cannot answer. But it’s not okay because these people are not your friends. It is not okay because you don’t know how to answer, and these strangers won’t cut you slack.
Welcome to the world of Auditory Processing Disorder. APD, like Autism, is a spectrum. Some people have a harder time with it than others. I would say that I am smack dab in the middle of that spectrum. The stories above, are examples from my real life.
Now, APD is something similar to a mis-wiring of the brain. The ears of a person with APD typically work just fine but the brain isn’t able to decode the information. APD is usually discovered when a child says “what?” enough times after a person has spoken and the parents take the child to get their hearing tested. For me, it was discovered through my lack of auditory memory, while receiving my Autism testing.
There are many symptoms of APD but the most common are as follows:
Auditory Memory
This is what I have had the biggest issues with. Auditory memory is the ability to hear verbal instruction/conversation. For some reason, the brain doesn’t store the verbal information for as long as the visual information.
For me it looks like this. My parents will say, “Emily, please take out the trash, wipe the counters, and round up all of the laundry.” I will take out the trash and think I am done. Because in my mind, take out the trash is the only thing I remember being told to do.
A tip to get around auditory memory problems is to write everything down. When my parents tell me to do something, I write it down or ask them to text it to me. When I am on the phone and someone tells me important information, I write it down on a notepad. At work, my desk is littered with Sticky Notes from things people told me and I immediately wrote down.
Auditory Sequencing
Auditory Sequence is when the brain mixes up what was heard. So instead of hearing “the cow jumped over the moon,” they may hear “the cat jumping over these moons.” It can get very confusing.
To be quite honesty, I haven’t found an easy way around this yet. The best advice is what I do. Politely ask the person, “Excuse me, I do not think I heard you correctly, can you repeat yourself?” Sometimes I get it the second time and can have a good laugh sharing what I thought they said.
Auditory Discrimination
In the above examples, a big part of them were the ability to hear all the sounds of the environment. This is because the brain cannot discriminate between what is important sounds (like the conversation) and what is unimportant (like the fans, shoes, etc).
There really is no fix or tip for this one. I struggle with this one in stores or at parties. It is one of the reasons I avoid crowded areas like restaurants at noon, and parties with lots of people.
So, the next time your loved one or friend says “what?” or doesn’t respond to your question, take a moment to look at the environment. They might be ignoring you or not listening to you on purpose, but they might be having a hard processing day.