Hearing

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Since realising I'm aspie and getting the diagnosis I have been monitoring myself as well as being a lot kinder to myself.

One example is the failure to follow conversations. I used to just pretend I heard. It affected my work for many years without me realising it. I would allow my social embarrassment to stop me from pursuing the subject till I understood. This was exacerbated by years of driving teachers and lecturers crazy with questions. The rest of the class did not seem to need to question as much as I did. I frustrated everyone. I have difficulty understanding people if they explain anything to me verbally. It isn't that I don't hear them because my hearing is top notch. Its just that I can't listen as well as process technical content or socially complex cues. At least, this is what I'm beginning to understand. Its odd, because once information is fed to me in a palatable format I have no issues at all in understanding. Its not a weakness with understanding complex technical things, its just the initial receipt of information that is sometimes fouled up.

Its been a revelation to me concerning how much of a problem this is. I now allow myself to simply say to people that I just didn't hear or understand that. As a result, people quite often think that I have a hearing problem (which is indirectly true). I don't mind that because they start making allowances for me, which helps me.

A classic problem I experience is if someone describes spatial phenomena (such as the structure of an industrial machine or the directions to a place. In the description of structure I invariably visualise plan view or cross-sectional view when the person is in the other view and they seem non-plussed as to why I don't get it. With directions to places, I just can't do the sequential turn left turn right thing. I need a picture so best is an address and I lookup a map of it all and then I'm quite happy.

Anyone else have similar experiences?

Sounds like my life experience. People tend to think I have a hearing problem or am stupid. For example, I have great difficulty in following what people are saying in a meeting. I seem to need some different approach to understand/learn something.

I'm only starting to realize that it has probably been an autism-related problem.

I have the same difficulties. Spoken instructions are garbage to my ears. It's like having my ears stuffed with trash!

I also have similar difficulties. I'm always saying "what?" or "huh?" to people, especially if I'm in an environment with background noise. My mom thought I was hard of hearing when I was younger, but testing showed that my ears work fine, so I guess it's the brain. I have this problem with songs on the radio too. It can be frustrating.

All your comments seem strangely familiar to me. I've always struggled with the whole dark art of conversation - why is it so difficult and intense simply listening to somebody talk !? Can't seem to look at someone AND gather my thoughts at the same time AND pull "normal" facial expressions AND fake both interest and understanding all at once ! Where's the fun in that ?

I went to a hearing specialist because I have sensitive hearing which causes me a lot of stress, such as noisy streets, crowd situations. Although I've got a bit of hearing loss, ironically I seem to hear every single voice in a crowded place - airports, supermarkets - and my reaction is to completely zone out so I'm like a disconnected zombie. Anyway that's how it feels.

Jabberwocky - interesting comment about visualising things,. I feel sort of lost in a sea of words which don't have a great deal of meaning sometimes. I am sure people think I am slow to grasp things (not untrue). I've worked out that grainy pictures pop up in my head when someone is talking to help me understand what they are on about. The more abstract the topic the harder it is for me to grasp what somebody is saying because often you can't picture it.
understanding people situations / conflicts as well doesn't come naturally either. I draw a lot of diagrams and write stuff down to try and understand better. This can help.

Same. It's a little embarrassing sometimes.

At times I also experience a slight delay between when someone tells me something and when my brain recognizes and decodes what the other person said. And then other times, my ears will be drawn to another nearby conversation instead of the one I'm ostensibly a part of.

Yes, I definitely have this big model in my head. I don't suppose all aspies are the same in this way but I think those who have difficulty hearing/listening are probably visual thinkers. The model is 3-dimensions and then has a time component as a 4th dimension but that is not visual except in that I can see things moving (which occurs over time). In my mind I zoom around the picture/model as fast as I can think, which is fast if I have my coordinates. If I don't have coordinates, my mind gets into a funk.

It appears to me that 'normal' people are able to comprehend new information with only minimal referral to existing knowledge or 'mind material' and scant regard for coordinates. They then seem to be able to effortlessly park the new information somewhere in their heads without any synthesis with their existing mind material. It seems 'normal' people are not bothered by inconsistencies or poor fit between new and existing information in their minds. Maybe they don't have poor fit or do they just ignore it?

In my earlier years (pre-diagnosis), synthesis of new and existing mind material caused me great anxiety. I was very narrow intellectually as a result. At some stage I had a transformative moment that I can only describe as a buddhist type of moment of realisation or enlightenment. Something in my mind comprehended that all of existence is dependent for existence on seemingly irreconcilable opposites (the essence of 'poor fit'). Its the essential yin-yang of buddhist thought. From that moment on I had far greater mental elasticity. My parents were very worried about me because I went from quiet and reserved to wild and reckless as a person. Still, I find myself agonising about where in the yin-yang spectra any new information fits, but its a lot less troublesome than in the early years. I've also settled down somewhat after many years of wild reckless abandonment of social norms.

Yep, following verbal instructions can be very difficult for me, or even conversations. Depending on my state at the time, I can end up involuntarily zoning out and missing some of what was said. I'd often go "what?" or "huh?" to kindergarten teachers, causing them to wonder if I was hard of hearing - but just like another poster in the thread, my hearing test showed my hearing was great.

Can't filter sound very well either. If there's more than slight background noise, holding a conversation becomes difficult to impossible.

I also noticed that I sometimes have difficulty telling which direction a sound is coming from. Anybody else experience this?

it's funny, I was just watching a thing on this a few days ago. You might find this interesting:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWm4UqNxXpM[/youtube]

I always thought I had a bad memory and I just couldn't remember and I swear I need it to be all written down and I ask lot of questions and I hate it when I get "You're not listening." I even had this problem in school and I could never keep up with what the teacher was saying and I kept zoning out. I always blamed it on ADD but was it an ASD thing the whole time?

I have a lot of problems understanding spoken information. It's pretty much impossible for me to repeat verbatim what has been said to me. And school lectures are useless to me. Everything I have learned, I have had to do myself.

I'm good with following or overhearing conversations about things like gossip or just general knowledge or small talk, but I'm no good with following things like tutors training things - unless it's something that interests me or is extremely easy.

Totally fascinating. Hung on Dave's every word. He speaks so fluently for the whole 14 minutes, I was really impressed. I think he is onto something here and keen to hear more of Dave. I tried looking him up but came up with some other "Daves". Can you help by giving a reference that I can google?