ashkent wrote:
Another lightbulb moment today (I'm finding I am having a lot of those lately!), so here I am again after some insight.
I've always had trouble hearing what other people say. Up until now, I have claimed that I must be a little bit deaf as I frequently have to ask people to repeat what they say, or actually turn and face me when they're talking so I can see their mouths when they speak. Yet the curiosity of it all is that I can hear small sounds really, really well. Ticking clocks being one of my biggest hates in this world.
And then today I come across something called (Central) Auditory Processing Disorder, which is sometimes linked with AS/ASD as a comorbidity. Most of the sites I can find regarding this are aimed at children with AS/ASD and not so much concerning adults (though there is some stuff about), so I'm asking for your experiences.
Up until now, I've not settled on whether a diagnosis for AS/ASD would be of benefit to me or not, but if there's a possibility that CAPD goes hand in hand with everything else in my life, I'm starting to think it might be beneficial to seek a referral after all.
Your thoughts please?
it wasn't until after i was diagnosed and had done some research on ASD that i had an explanation for a regular behaviour of mine that used to drive my family members and friends up the wall (i usually thought, if i thought about it at all, that it must be some form of temporary deafness): sometimes--it happened most often when i was distracted or lost in thought--when people would say something to me i would realise a second late that someone had spoken to me and i missed what they said, so i would ask them to repeat themselves....but then, as they began to repeat what they had just said and before more than a word or two could leave their mouths, i would respond to whatever they had originally said. my mother or sister or whoever i was talking to would then say, in an annoyed tone, "why did you ask me to repeat myself if you heard me?" and i wouldn't have an answer for them. i think people often thought i was doing it on purpose just to annoy them.
when i look back now, it strikes me as quite strange that i did this so often and never really stopped to think about what was going on; it makes me wonder just how much "alternative functioning" i have accepted as
normal for me that is not in fact normal for most people. it wasn't until i researched ASD and read about the auditory processing issues that i finally understood what was going on in my brain when i experienced these "glitches": i realised that there was sometimes a significant delay in my ability to process spoken language, and during the delay
i wasn't aware that i did actually hear the person's words but it was just that their meaning hadn't been processed by my conscious mind yet, and so i would ask them to repeat themselves (think of the teachers/adults in the charlie brown cartoons--that's what spoken language sounds like to me in those moments of delay). then my mind would float the meaning of the words to the surface and
i would hear their words again in my head but now with comprehension of them--and so i would begin to respond often before the other person has even had a chance to finish repeating themselves, with the end result of the other person being puzzled and annoyed by me.
the more time i have had to reflect back on my life through the lens of my diagnosis, the more such little "glitches" and peculiarities that used to mystify me or that i simply wrote off as aspects of my "eccentricity" have been explained, and i feel like i currently have a much better understanding of myself (and my neurology) than i ever have before because of it.
04 Jun 2014, 2:43 pm
