Autism and Hearing

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I suspect I have some auditory processing issues.

As an example, I recently attended a musical with my wife. I found myself having a difficult time following what was happening. Several times, people around me started laughing in response to something an actor/actress said or sang.

So:
- Maybe I am not hearing what the actor/actress are saying
- Maybe I can hear what they are saying, but I am having a hard time processing that information in real time
- Maybe I just don’t find what is happening funny

In any event, when I was young (sometime during elementary school), my Mom brought me to the doctor specifically to have my hearing checked. I don’t remember the specific reason why (I was having my hearing checked). The doctor confirmed my hearing was fine, because I could identify every sound in each ear. However, that testing was probably incomplete. As I simply needed to listen for the absence or presence of a single sound. I didn’t need to process the information conveyed in the sound. Likewise, I didn’t need to focus on one sound, when others were present at the same time.

There have been some amusing episodes of WTF Is Everyone Saying:

When I was six years old, Mom took me to the doctor to get a polio vaccine booster shot.

The doctor said, "How old are you today?"
I heard: "How are you today?"
I replied: "I'm fine."
Mom said, "You're not five, you're six!"
I said, "I'm not sick, I'm FINE."

A conversation this afternoon with my wife:
WIFE: Hey, we should go to Red Lobster. They're having a special on steak and crab cakes!
ME: Bacon crab cakes?!? That sounds disgusting! Why does everyone want to put bacon on everything??

Oh, my gosh, those are hilarious! I kinda wish ours were like that, the way they chain off each other like a two-person game of "telephone".

I think I mentioned before that my mom and now my daughter have a habit of filing away the name of something however they first heard it, regardless of what it's actually called or how many times they've been corrected. The other day my daughter asked why I was working on the, "Gagro-Flobber" (our web-connected Geiger Counter). And my mom to this day still refers to the bakery-coffee shop from the 80's & early 90's as, "Baloosia-Bahloo" (La Petite Boulangerie)...that sort of thing. It's so idiosyncratic, though, that after a while it becomes almost a new dialect of English that everyone else has to learn...

I panic a little when people talk to me, because I know 70% of the time it's going to be followed by me saying "What?..... What?" a million and one times. I'm sure it frustrates my mother to no end, lol.

Sometimes I feel as if I have to squint at and lean in closer to whoever is talking to me to be able to understand them... even though there's nothing wrong with my hearing. It seems like most people mumble vaguely and make vague gestures expecting me to understand them.

Frustrating!

It's not helped much by the fact that my wife has actual 50% hearing loss. It's a wonder we understand each other at all. Or that the neighbors don't complain about us yelling "WHAT?!??" at each other all the time.

Do you mean that you don't understand it or that it sounds like mumbling?

Not at all, I've never had a problem with receptive, but for my son (moderate ASD), definitely. He will often ask to have something repeated several times and then will say the words aloud himself to make sure he has understood them. His actual hearing is fine.

Thank you, for having such a positive attitude and seeing the humor in things that can't be changed.

Oh hey, that's cool, much less marital fighting that way. I may have to deafen my husband specifically for that purpose.



^ This is seriously one of the cutest things I've ever heard.

When I was really little I thought "Huart" was another name for God because of that very line, which I heard as "Our father Huart, in heaven." Sounds vaguely ancient Mesopotamian, doesn't it? The great sky-god Huart...

I also thought Mary magically produced fruit like Jesus magically produced loaves, fish and wine, except in a more earthly and somewhat disgusting way, because of the line in the Hail Mary about the fruit of Mary's womb. I figured the "Jesus" that came right after was simply because prayers were supposed to mention Jesus somehow, so they just stuck it in there, or something, sort of like an "amen." As to the fruit, I could only guess how it got out and fed the people and I didn't really want to know.

I also worried about the "mother of God" part because that was what my mother often yelled when she was mad.

I absolutely love your outlook, GW. Thoroughly enjoy your posts.

Last edited by NowhereWoman on 26 Oct 2015, 2:05 am, edited 1 time in total.

That especially happens to me when someone says something out of the blue unexpectedly.

Yeah, I'm the same. I'll usually say "what", or "I don't know"/ "I'm not sure" to give myself a few seconds to process what they've said and reply if I can.

Yeah, I often say "what?" instinctively even if I know what the person said. I guess I thought that was normal for everybody.