Help with listening

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So, my son had a book report to do and I was so pleased because he actually finished the book before he had to and took his time planning and writing the book report. I checked the planner to make sure that he was following it and he was. 6 paragraphs? Check. Compare and contrast? Check. 2 examples? Check.

He turned it in today and I asked him how it went and he told me that it was supposed to be 3 pages long and have pictures included. That information was not on the planner. It was clearly given verbally, and clearly he was not listening.

I'm not here to discuss how his teacher should have given him better written instructions. I know that. That's easy enough to address.

Here's what I need help with: We talked about what might have happened where he missed the information. I suggested to him that I sometimes notice that if he thinks he knows what I am going to say, he sometimes stops listening to me. He said he knows he does this. I asked how many times a day does it happen at school and his response was "all the time."

I know this is a part of his ADD. Has anyone ever had any luck with compensatory strategies that he can use that do not rely on other people to provide him detailed written information?

I don't have ADHD, and I do this too. I stop listening when I think I know what someone is going to say. I don't want to hear all their words, because boring. It helps to do something else while listening. It helps with making listening less boring.

I need a more demanding activity than fidgeting or stimming. Something like playing a simple computer game helps me pay attention to what other people are saying. I play Bejeweled Blitz on my iPad while listening to others talk.

I have trouble paying attention to people speaking because I have to work very hard to process what they're saying. The worst thing for me is when they pause, because my attention just flies away and I completely lose the thread of what they're trying to get across.
The way people could fix this is to just spit out what they need to say, in short, simple, sentences, without pausing for 10 fricking seconds in the middle of it.

I wish I had a solution to this. My son does this too. He does not have a ADD diagnosis but his autism manifests in ways that look a lot like (and may be, for all I know be) ADD.

I do not have ADD but I will also tune out of boring things, but only in a social context. I have to really focus but I have to see the benefits/necessity of it, which is why I have trouble with it socially.

My son has difficulties listening as well. He hears with gaps and sometimes it seems he "assumes" what's in those gaps. I had him tested for auditory processing and it was agreed, according to the results, he listens with gaps! What I was misinformed about, though, is that he doesn't assume what's in those gaps.

Here's a comparison:
I was handed an image to look at - an optical illusion. We know that, sometimes, our eyes see things we KNOW does not exist and we have a fair bit of understanding that prevents us from over-reacting. Well, this same theory also applies to our hearing. Apparently, our brain will compensate the loss of information, by replacing it with information that's already been stored in our memory. She gave me an interesting example of a true story:

A client complained about her son, who had put his coat in the freezer, and swore up and down, his mom told him to do it. "WHY would I tell him to do that??" she asked. The conversation btwn mom and son, prior to the incident, went something like this: "Hon, please put the ______________ [peas] in the freezer." Due to the gap in her request, her son's brain replaced that gap with "coat" and therefor, HEARED "coat" without assuming. Apparently, mom was always telling him where to put his coat.

Some interesting facts:

1) Son did exactly what he was told to do, despite it being peculiar. He didn't question his mom's request at all.
2) He probably got in trouble for not putting the peas away, like he was asked.
3) He DID get into trouble for "lying" about being told to put his coat in the freezer.

This grudge lasted for days! I bet many of our children are getting in trouble for things they ARE actually hearing. I know my son does - or did. Now, everytime my son says, ".. BUT YOU SAID _________!! !! !" Instead of getting into a power struggle, I've learned to say, "I know you heard me say that, but it's not what I said. __________ is what I meant." Surprisingly, he has accepted this response on all accounts.

When it comes to boredom .. I had to laugh. As an adult, I used to get irritated with a particular colleague. Say I'd ask her a question and then expect a quick response (a yes/no). Instead, she would break it down into details for me and I'm thinking ... "OKAAAY!! How can I get her to shut up - politely??" That boredom IS brutal and I'm an adult who has the ability to practice self control lol (sometimes). I can just imagine, a child in the spectrum, who may exhibit qualities of giftedness, how difficult it is to sit there through Carpet Time's lessons

I have an auditory processing problem. I do not think that what happens to me is what happens to my son (though it is very likely to be the case for others). I think for him, it is like a mental "short cut." I already know what you are going to say, so I am not going to listen. I am fairly certain that what happened was that as the teacher was handing the written instructions out, she probably gave the additional instructions, but since she was handing him the instructions, he saw no point in listening as he would read them later.

If anyone is interested, here is what my experience with CAPD is like. It is worse with background noise and better as long as I can see the face of the person I am talking to. It is as if all of a sudden, I am either talking to Charlie Brown's teacher or I'm listening to a radio that has gone out of range. I either get speech that wounds like "Wa wa wa wa waaaaaaa" or coming in and out in choppy bits.

I am totally aware of it and my brain doesn't fill in anything. I have come across other people who have a similar experience to mine, but many of them have an automatic "rewind" in their brain and even though they didn't catch it the first time, after a pause, it "replays" in their head and they catch it. I do not have automatic rewind. I am just left either having to ask people to repeatedly repeat themselves or trying to figure out from context what they said. It sucks. A lot.

Fair enough. I thought the story was interesting, anyway. I've got a brain rewind function as well (thankfully) and I admit, I don't always hear everything that's been said .. or it just doesn't process well. The apple doesn't fall too far from the tree, in this house