Not on RUclips, for some reason (maybe because a lot of RUclips is people talking directly to 'me' and that's a lot easier to follow) but definitely when watching some dramatisisation. I have subtitles on for everything dramatic.
I have ADHD and APD from brain damage in a car crash. This is my exact experience every day. This is very hard to live with. I have never heard it described better than this. People, do not give up. Do whatever it takes to be as command content as you can be. God bless you all.
I’m a newly AuDHD diagnosed elder (age 64). This video literally blew my mind. The things I’m learning have been epic! I’ve been told I misunderstand 100% of what I hear. I’ve been fired for insubordination because of it, and had many misunderstandings and mistakes with my husband. I’ve learned to say, “so what I heard you say is” (fill in the blank). Every stinking time they say, “No. That’s not what I said”. So. Let me get this straight… This has been auditory processing disorder with autism my whole freaking time?! MIND. BLOWN. 😮
The delays!!! The poorly annunciated words! When water is running or there’s wind! YES!! Might be unrelated, but if any of my ‘fave songs’ start playing I literally can’t focus on what anyone else is saying regardless of how serious the topic may be. This is what actually started my journey to finding out I’m autistic after 40yrs, during a convo with another mom where I broke down apologizing (in between verses) and she responded, “That’s okay. I’ve got 3 autistic daughters at home just like you.” 😳 Bless her!!!
Mate, this is so relatable! The fave songs bit, lol, loud background noises such as what you said, running water and wind! lol. Thank you so much for your comment, very validating and that lady was a blessing to you 🙂 All the very best
Yes -- conversations in groups are terrible. I usually ask for instructions and requests in writing if I can get them and use closed captions when they're available.
I have a 35-60% hearing loss and tinnitus. I also have asd. Double whammy. Sooooo much of this video applies to me. It sucks and it's very difficult at times to the point where I have to smile and nod and give up trying to figure out what's going on. The social anxiety that stems from this is very real.
I am deaf in one ear (and a hearing aid won't work completely deaf) and I have asd. It made my entire life difficult. Yes at one point all I do is not my head and hope I don't agree to anything weird because its so tire to ask people to repeat themselves or enunciate clearly. This whole video describes my everyday life :(
@@BladeX11883 thank you for sharing. Crappy hearing runs in my family, so I'm sure I'll have hearing aids in my future. Good luck and I hope it becomes more easily manageable.
@@Bubbalou21 after 40 years it has to some extent, however, I originally thought these issues were due to my deaf ear (late diagnosis), but it didn't explain some of the other issues like things sometimes seemed louder even though can't hear. Growing up it was manageable due to knowing I was hearing impaired and got accommodations more easily, like preferred seating and whatnot, but it's not visible disability so it can be still hard to navigate the world and people. At this age, I sometimes give up putting in the effort to hear because I am so burned out.
Same. Also I have Meniere's Disease that flares up when I am in burnout, which tinitus becomes louder and I also get a weird sh sh noise in my head followed by dissyness (sort of virtigo, but it is not positional vertigo). I relate to you.
I learned American Sign Language because I was sure I was losing my hearing. It has come in handy though lol that's a good one 😂 but yes ASL is essential because I ended up marrying my cute husband who is Deaf and Autistic.
Notes, no problem. Harmonic intervals, no problem. Instrumental timbres, no problem. Lyrics ... uh ... well, " ... when I dressed a Porsche weasel, she refused to be the master ..."
I used to marvel at people who can make out the words in songs. I was convinced everyone reads the lyric sheet and doesnt admit it until i found out im not the only one
I'm so glad you posted this!!! I can relate 100%. I can remember all the notes, phrases, intervals, harmony....but words....nope. scatt singing has saved me numerous times
Same here. I can also figure people's tone speaking relatively well - background in music as a kid definitely helps to finetune hearing in such ways. But lyrics at often incomprehensible. Often I don't get them even wrong, if they are in English. In my language I might just get them wrong.
Before I got my autism diagnosis much later as an adult I got my ears checked as a kid because I kept misunderstanding people or couldn‘t hear them very well in noisy environments. Turned out I actually was/am having a few deficits with hearing but nothing too major (runs in the family though). But when I got a hearing aid device it actually became even WORSE. I could differentiate noises even LESS and I got severe headaches after less than an hour wearing them. Even though we kept adjusting the device over and over again for months it just never got any better. So eventually I didn‘t wear it anymore because it really crippled my mental capacity. It felt like it pushed me to a mental burnout by overwhelming me in record time. And now that I have my autism diagnosis it makes so much sense. Because hearing a little bit less actually helps when you’re having auditory filtering difficulties. The challenge with differentiating noises and voices of people remain either way but at least I don‘t get overwhelmed by noises as easily and fast because I don‘t hear so well. When your brain is having trouble filtering noises it is actually beneficial (to your mental energy at least) if there is less to filter after all.
Interesting. I feel there is some overlap between autism and low latent inhibition (neural pattern where your subconscious doesn't filter as much information, which makes you incredibly observant of things others are oblivious to, until your conscious mind gets overwhelmed with all the info). Your description makes me think you were experiencing such an overload. It also makes me wonder how much of APD is that much less information from our ears is filtered before it gets to our conscious processing. This would explain that delay we do when we don't respond in a NT amount of time. And when we can't distinguish song lyrics or conversations while background noise present or when echo chamber acoustics exist. We are drinking from a firehose of sound. Too much to process.
@@Baptized_in_Fire. It was 15 years ago though so I don‘t know how far these devices have come since then. I also didn‘t have my autism diagnosis back then so maybe it could‘ve been adjusted to my specific filtering difficulties if that would‘ve been known. I don‘t know. I personally have just come to accept my bad hearing as a useful tool to be able to handle noisy environments longer and better at the cost of sometimes misunderstanding people or not hearing them at all (where the whole stigma of being arrogant and ignoring people and not showing any interest comes from). But I also just don‘t want to go through that painful process of adjusting for a hearing aid again. But if the downsides of bad hearing are bigger for you than the upside then it can‘t hurt to still inform yourself whether these things are able to accommodate for people like us nowadays. Wouldn‘t want to discourage you from that if it could still help you.
@@x3SayuriChan thanks for your thoughtful reply. It's annoying (near impossible) to try to hear someone in a noisy environment. I can't filter out trucks and equipment/engine noises, other conversations, etc., from what the person in front of me is saying, it's all a blur. I think a hearing aid might make it a louder blur. Ear plugs helped in certain situations but made others worse. I think it may be the same for a hearing aid. It would have to be super advanced tech. Idk maybe electronic earplugs like shooters wear would work better. Block loud noises but allow quiet speech thru. Not sure. It's a thought. Anyway, thank you for your feedback! Appreciated.
i have hearing loss too, the infamous 4k notch, and it is not the main cause of my difficulty understanding language, IMO. I remember when I went to an audiologist and otolaryngologist for ear infections when I was in high school, and after the infection cleared up, I insisted to them that I still could not hear, and the doc got a little angry with me, since everything seemed normal, and I guess he thought I was seeking attention or something. I was not. I had no idea why I could not hear despite having "normal" hearing, and they sort of dismissed my concerns. People in my freshman year of high school (in one of the more minor forms of bullying) called me 'earwax' because I had such difficulty. Having trouble hearing is so funny, ha ha! That was before the hearing damage that caused the 4k notch, which happened in my senior year of high school. I have always had auditory processing issues and auditory defensiveness, since I can remember, but I did not get dx'd until I was in my early 30s. Parsing auditory language is cognitively intensive, and any competing noises make it nearly impossible. I have a great deal of tinnitus too, and it seems to act as a competing noise, drowning out quiet sounds, even though my audiologist insisted that it does not work that way, since there actually is no sound. (To her credit, though, she also noted that a lot of my difficulty understanding the spoken word is not consistent with my hearing loss, so there is some other factor there, paraphrasing her.)
Had a partner who used to weaponize this against me. This is abuse. They’d mumble all the time, especially in loud environments or during arguments. Also, they’d get angry when I’d laugh at myself for mis-hearing. They also startled me on purpose and would act offended when i startled at unexpected sounds. Have confidence! Don’t let these ppl undermine your self esteem or gaslight you with your disability. ❤️
I'm the NT spouse so am in the other end of this type of abuse......told I'm obsessed with constant noise and brainwash myself with podcasts constantly ....meantime it's normal daily housework whilst listening to various topics on podcasts. I'm not allowed to anymore, if I do, it's called me having a messed up/scrambled brain thatsxall over the place . I was so confused by this, especially as I was so careful not to dominate with my podcasts, I'd watch the volume and even use earphones . But I thought it's reasonable to sometimes listen without earphones since I'm the only one doing housework...but I'm told I'm obsessed with noise. It's projection. 😢
0:56 wait...REALLY😮? That's ALSO an autism related thing? I did go to the testing, they did tell me my ears work perfect and same time I am extremly noise sensitive with bothering sounds. I am really exited now to hear more😊
This is such an accurate description of me. I have always passed hearing tests just fine. A few years ago I went to an audiologist specifically to address my difficulties hearing with background noise. She told me my hearing is fine and that the problem was with my brain. However, she gave me no additional information. Nothing on what its cause might be, or what to do about it. It wasn't until recently that I realized I almost certainly have autism (I don't have an official diagnosis), and that this is a common issue.
Very same experience here too. Last time I had my ears checked, the audiologist actually said "It's all in your head." We both laughed at how that sounded but she did clarify that she meant it was how my brain interprets sound. I just let people I interact with know that I have sensory processing issues and if I make them repeat it's not to be a jerk but because I genuinely didn't hear them or didn't hear them properly. Seems to help.
Omg thank you yes yes yes. I hear everything or nothing. Absolutely no ability to filter anything out. And i have hyperacusis meaning I hear everything louder.
I once identified someone eating Nerds candies over the phone because of the specific sound Nerds makes in their little boxes. The person I was talking to said I was exactly right. I also heard someone using a towel over the phone, like in the movie _Wolf,_ and they asked how I knew they had just used a towel. So yeah, hearing things really well can be very distracting at times.
@WorthlessDeadEnd lol I will never forget the look of shock and fear on the face of the nurse distracted by the bad paramedic. The paramedic was convinced that I was a drug user and was saying, "Just give her narcan" (could have killed me, btw). The nurse at one point said, "She is so creepy she's staring right at us." In a hushed tone. I responded, "Yeah, and I can hear you too!" In that instant, the paramedic left, and nurses looked afraid, knowing they had been ignoring their jobs, scattered, and got to work. I had at that point beed ignored in the ER, no care at all for 40 min. The paramedic was ignoring and mistreating me for 2 hours by that point. Not only was she wrong, but I was lucky to be alive. I had given my healthy heart angina following 3 or 4 faining spells due to panic attacks, MCAS induced slowly progressing anaphylaxis and vasovagal syncope, With anemia. That nurse KNEW she could have cost me her job and my life in that instant. The absolute dred and shame was written on her face. I like to think it was the situation that made her take her job more seriously and potentially saved a life.
@CherrysJubileeJoyfully Thank you for sharing your story. I am sorry that happened to you. I once gave myself a panic attack while I was obsessively writing down my thoughts and fears onto a sheet of paper that I had found. My hands started freezing up and went numb. It affected my writing, which became larger, sloppier, and started going crooked on the paper. My mouth and chin froze up and went numb. I was hyperventilating. It felt like my body was under attack. I knew that I had done it to myself, but I was so deeply entrenched in my feelings in that moment that I had to force myself to put down the pen and paper and ask a friend for a glass of water. I started feeling better after I drank and had stopped writing down my obsessive fears on that paper.
@WorthlessDeadEnd I don't want to alarm you because that may have been a typical freeze response, but, I think you should really consider a sleep study. Paralysis from strong emotions. What I describe as "kill bill vol 1 big toe" (where the bride is urgeing her big toe to move. She feels it she knows it can move she just has to will it to hard enough to convince it ) is a possible sign of narcolepsy. A VERY VERY misunderstood condition. That type of Paralysis is called cataplexy and is only associated with narcolepsy 1. Hopefully it was just a freeze response but if you struggle with stressors, depression, anxiety, insomnia, hypersomnia, movement in your sleep, low appetite, forget to eat or drink, extream difficulty waking up, or if you can run out the door as soon as you wake up. You can sleep anywhere , or You were diagnosed bipolar or borderline (most common misdiagnosis) Especially if you dream very quickly. these can be signs of narcolepsy and with treatment, life is so much easier.
@WorthlessDeadEnd other common co-occuring conditions include Asd/adhd Celiac/chrones/diverticulitis Ehler's danlos Mast cell activation Pots or vasovagal syncope Also if you have a History of Head trauma H1n1 And a few other viruses Mine was triggered by Meningoencephalitis from chicken pox. Basically it's genetic but it needs a trigger event.
Nailed it! I almost had an argument with hearing specialist years ago when he told me I had good hearing! And the many hilarities thru life when I've misunderstood words from others. Thanks yet again for another life long confusion making sense ❤
Hearing specialists should have some training about autism. My children and I both would have been diagnosed sooner if audiologists understood that our symptoms were most likely due to our autistic brains.
As a student audiologist thank you for making this video on APD. It's very helpful for people with APD or friends/family/coworkers to have this resource to understand what exactly is happening to the hearing of people with APD alongside how they can better communicate to them. The misconceptions that people with normative audiograms have normal hearing, alongside that everyone with hearing difficulties just needs the volume turned up on become the most counterproductive with cases of APD.
I'm not (yet) convinced I have autism, but I do share a lot of the same issues. This video in particular. I absolutely have APD, get startled all the time and have Misophonia.
I use captions on everything even though I have perfect hearing. I adore Orion's Australian accent, but I still use captions. But yes, some captions are funny. I have perfect hearing, but watching the show and seeing the caption not match makes me laugh. I wish I had captions when talking to people. My brain forgets what they are saying, mixes things up, or the background noise gets in the way. If I had captions, it would help. That's why I'm glad the instructors at the gym in the workout classes wear microphones I would get mixed up.
Yes! I can't deal with the automatic captions on RUclips because it's more effort trying to process two totally different sentences at once than just processing the audio on its own, LOL - I only really like the captions that are manually matched to what's been said (and are done properly)
@@RebekahAmberClark: Try watching closed captions that translate Chinese (either Mandarin or Cantonese) to English. The technology clearly cannot cope with tonal languages and so some of the translations are hilarious.
@RebekahAmberClark The Kdrama's or korean channels with English subtitles are a real brain teaser for me. They are speaking their language, and my brain has to focus on the English subtitles, and they are adding a lot to it, I kinda get confused for a minute. But I love Kdrama's and korean channels with English subtitles. But if they add extra in the same sentence, I have to pause it.
this is messed up!! this is EXACTLY what I was telling my psych during my screening! I had no words to describe it, though... My wife, daughter and I were going to a restaurant. I dropped them off at the door with the usual instructions- a booth on the outside periphery of the room. I parked the car, walked in and the hostess led us to a table in the center of the room. I literally said, "nope," turned around and walked out. What I recall, (because these situations are confusing to me; i don't have words to describe) (well, now I do) is what seems like I'm looking through a horizontally-oblong oval occupying approximately 1/3 center of my visual field. Outside that oval is fuzz, like TV static/snow, or wavy lines; whatever it is, i can't see through it. The commotion is what I cannot deal with, though. Maybe I don't have words for it, because I don't recognize it. It is like the loudest, monotone, consistently-pitched-audience-talking commotion, with an overlying harmonic resonance. Through it all, i can't understand people speaking to me. I have to ask "what?" all the time, because their words are gibberish. I mean, they are words, but not the words they are saying; like my brain randomly switched the words. But she said it's social anxiety. I have worked in healthcare for 18 years and have never had a problem with people. Crowds and groups are loud and stimulating. I avoid and abhor the COMMOTION!!! NOT the people; people I am indifferent, but would rather be alone, because I feel I am different from everyone else (aside from my close family). Now the very next topic was ALSO an issue. She says, "First, I want to say, you are VERY bright! However, you have difficulty thinking." I felt like she kissed my cheek gently as she disemboweled me. I just stared, like, "Whaaa??" She said I am intelligent, but my brain has difficulty switching tasks, topics, etc. It is slow to do so. Causes anxiety when pressured to do so. Which makes sense, because I prefer written communication (texts, emails, etc.), due to randomness of spoken conversations and the jumping between topics. I can do it, but I misunderstand what people are saying a lot
On the subject of accent, don't worry about yours Orion, I am not even a native English speaker and I can understand you perfectly. In fact I like that you speak very clearly, must be all those radio years !
13:19 Orion, I feel STRONG relation to the issues I get with other people getting mad at me for not remembering their names.... Now imagine the inability to remember names, coupled with Face Blindness. Yeah, oh boy, I cant recognize someone;s face, and I cant remember their name, got me set up for a whopping terrible time making ANY friends who think I forgot "themselves" when I merely forgot their identifying features. For example, a neighbor has a dog, who wanted me to not address them as "ma'am" and did want me to remember their name and While I could remember their dog, I could never remember the lady and the face attached to this dog, every time I saw the dog, I could swear I was seeing this dog being leashed by a complete stranger every time. With enough repetition, she helped me remember her name, by repeating her name for over a minute. Oh my goodness, that repeating is exactly what I needed... only remembering her face is left to the unknown.
This may be helpful for people with audio processing disorder: Carry a notebook and write down anything important as people talk. When I write information down, I usually remember it, and as an added bonus, I can look back through my notes, and I have almost all the information while most everyone else can not remember correctly what actually happened. This is a great way to ancor interactions in reality instead of remembered emotions and wishful thinking on their part. I gained a huge amount of credibility and reliability by talking notes. I blew everyone else out of the water.
This works very good for me. For example when in university I always took notes, allthough there was a PDF we could look at at home. Well no, I need my own words..also, if I dont take notes my brain tends to go an a nice journey and I daydream and I dont remember a word that was said
Thx for the vid. I'm a late in life diagnosis and this is just one of many things I'm learning. I thought I was just a visual learner. But I have real problems with processing. I was in Naval ROTC as a young man. I always had trouble with a long list of verbal orders.
3:00 as a Highly Sensitive Person l struggled my whole life with background noises. Very far noises block my hearing of the person in front of me 🤦 Man what a struggle living next to a busy street 😭 moving cars hurt my ears.. I also have a history of ear infections my whole childhood and still get them from time to time.. I'm 30! I'm someone who stays silent for way too long, loove the peace and hearing my inner monologues 😅, I also don't like yelling or loud people 🤦 what a pain man! I'm also almost always late to respond, as you said it's the slow processing; it's worse on the phone 😅and OMG with outer noises pain... Auditory hypersensitivity 👂 PS: loove the Aussie accents 🤭
The first sentence you typed that is me absolutely! I can hear but I usually can't hear the person in front well if there's background noises or a lot of people speaking at once
I found myself thinking, "Yes!" to virtually everything you mentioned. To make matters worse, I developed tinnitus about 7 years ago, so now I'm permanently in a noisy environment. My wife likes to make phone calls with her cell phone in speakerphone mode. That makes things sound so distorted that they can be physically painful. And those ASMR videos that became all the rage? They are anything but relaxing; they tend to produce agitation in me. For about 15 years, one of my responsibilities at work was to do technical interviews by telephone. I had to process what they said, understand it technically, and respond with an appropriate follow up question. That was incredibly difficult. A tip: try to block other kinds of sensory input when you need to concentrate on listening to someone. For example, I have to close my eyes to make more processing power available. I've been trying to train my family to use my name (or "Dad" or "Grampa") to get my attention, and then wait for me to acknowledge them before continuing to speak. That lets me have time to reduce other sensory input, and use as much processing power as I can muster to focus on what they're saying.
"I have to close my eyes to make more processing power available." I do that too. My eyes take up a lot of processing power because they're not all that great and my brain carefully fills in a lot of detail so that I get a coherent picture of the world - but it comes at a cost. I was doing an oral exam some years ago and the examiner commented on how I closed my eyes every time I answered a question.
I don't know if it will help with the ear ringing, but I found a lot of mine is linked to foods. Yes, foods... If I avoid the foods then no ear ringing. It means eating super clean. I mainly eat grass fed meat. Beef + lamb. A little organic fruit like prunes. But many "healthy fruit + veggies" cause the ear ringing. Bananas certainly do! Of course it will be different foods for different people. Most foods I avoid.
IT MAKES SENSE NOW.... I'm an Ordertaker at work.... gosh how hard it is to understand people... I feel either like I'm just deaf in the ears or I need a translator for my native language sometimes...
Orion, firstly thank you for your humour. I love that you just let it come out and even play with it. Very appreciated because not many people can actually make me laugh out loud so cuddos and thank you. Second, these examples are basically my lived experiences as well. I am not diagnosed but have been researching Autism for quite a few years and it sure explains everything for me. Having channel's like yours to glean tips, tricks and info from is in itself a source guidence and relief at better understanding myself and feeling less alone/odd. Thanks a whole bunch Man! ✋ ❤
mainly the fatigue, because i had to mask it all for so long. since my burnout i've slowly learned to allow my kind of assertive side to take the reins too though, in order to prevent my environment from overwhelming me. it's difficult not to hurt other people's feelings that way though. healing really is messy stuff.
Yes, sooo relatable, almost everything! To pick out just one aspect: my learning ability. It nose-dived when I went from school to Uni. At first I couldn't explain it at all, starting to think I'd gone stupid overnight. But I now know one key factor: how things were presented. At school you learned stuff at many different (sensory) levels and you could ask questions at anytime. At uni I was then bombarded by 45 or 90 min lectures of some really complex, unfamiliar material at high speed and mostly in large, echo-ey auditoriums with sub-optimal sound systems. My head literally started to hurt about 15-20 minutes into every lecture, a feeling like my brain was about to explode. It felt impossible to ever grasp what was being presented and the horrid experience compounded my learning problem further.
Very similar experience for me, but rather than a headache I'd literally shut down and pass out. Completely sabotaged any attempt I'd make to pay attention and learn during lectures. Ended up getting booted after failing the second year twice. :(
My experience is that Auditory Processing Disorder is something that can happen later in life, too. I used to be very pleased with myself because I could easily understand accents (the exception was a strong Aussie accent!), but sometimes had issues with people who talked too fast. My hearing (physically) started to deteriorate in my 50's, and my suddenly realizing that I could no longer understand the dialogue on TV programs that I formerly had no problem understanding, lead me to having my hearing tested and my learning that I have a frequency loss problem. I now have hearing aids that help a great deal, but apparently having gone over a decade with uncorrected deteriorating hearing messed up my auditory processing and I now have the auditory processing disorder you discuss here. I now have trouble with conversations and absolutely hate telephone calls unless I'm listening to someone I've known for so many years that I can interpolate what they're saying. This explains why when I studied languages (four!) I had no problem with written language but understanding spoken language was difficult.
Wow, so much of this rings true for me. My funniest mishearing incident was probably an ad I saw for AARP (American Association of Retired Persons - I'm Canadian, but we get US networks on TV, of course). The announcer dude said, "Come for a workshop!" and I heard "Kung fu workshop!", and I was like, "Seniors doing kung fu? Sounds cool!"
@@resourcedragon I thought so too until one time I was at the supermarket with my friend and an announcement came up it hurt my ears I covered them, then asked my friend do you know what it said?! She told me what it was and then I knew it's a me and my ears problem 😅
I think this is why I can’t spell. Nothing upset me so much as “it’s spelt the way it sounds”. That phrase almost made me cry. I also am the champion of creating mondegreens (misheard lyrics or poetry), for example, Tumbling Dice… I hear “the Jews in the crowd” instead of “the jewels in the crown”. Almost everyone does that once in a while. I do it all the time.
Looooooool can relate. I grew up in France, had to learn a whole new language. In secondary school I was pretty much fluent but struggled massively in literature (French). When I had trouble spelling a word the teacher would always tell me "it's spelt how it sounds". Like lady this is not my first language?! Had no idea at the time that I was ADHD because all my difficulties at school were put down to me being British.
@@0MochiBear0How frustrating! I got perfect marks in French (I’m in Canada) until grade 10 when the teacher insisted that there be virtually no English spoken. I could read it. I could write it. I could even speak it. But I could not hear it. I won an academic achievement award that year. I ran into the teacher after the award was given and she was really pissed off. Said I shouldn’t have got it because I went from a B to just passing in French. She thought I was lazy. I was too intimidated to try to explain it to her. Not that I knew what it was. No doubt she’s long dead but my God how I would like to talk to her now! 😂
@@gaylynyoung6387 Same, I would very much like to explain my difficulties to past teachers. I think some of them like being a bully though. Well done for such an achievement!
So much of this!!!! Thank you!!! To help me focus in meetings, I stream bi-aural beats from RUclips. They help lower my anxiety which helps in work meetings. I turn them down in my headphones not to become a distraction. When I have it leveled right, I can participate without falling behind and have far fewer miscommunications.
During my undergrad years, I went to lectures simply to note down what I need to learn, and then learn them by myself in the library. This was what I had to do to cope with ADP.
Hi Orion, I'm so glad you made a video about this. I'm autistic and I also have APD. I've observed that one of the difficulties I have because of APD can cause frustration in other people, because they think I'm not listening to them when they speak to me- I tell them that I hear them, that I understand their words, and that I'm listening, but what they're saying to me sometimes isn''t registering in my brain. I also have the volume problem you mentioned- many people tell me that I'm shouting when I talk to them, but to me it doesn't sound like it. Over time, I have learned to avoid the loud talking by consciously talking more softly than I normally would, especially when I'm excited about something, so that I'm not accused of shouting.
I also have only 2 default voices : too soft or too loud. My most natural voice is the too loud voice I think. I use too soft at my job because it's quiet so people can hear me, and the too loud at home. Between those places, I try to use the right one but it's difficult to control which one will go out or how it will be heard…
@@Crouteceleste , that's how it is for me too. I'm also sometimes told that I speak too softly, in addition to speaking too loudly. I find my volume control hard to modulate as well. Thanks for your input!
@@KHawk9799 I can't count the number of times I've experienced the following: Me: speaks in my normal tone of voice Other person: What? Speak up, I can't hear you Me: repeats louder Them: What?! Me: repeats louder still Them: Quit mumbling, I still can't hear you Me: repeats as loud as I can Them: Well you don't have to yell!
@@sparrowelf, wow, that sounds a lot what i experience. I can't seem to get my volume right. So sorry you experience this too, but I'm glad to know I'm not the only one going through this.
One of my special interests is foreign languages, and even though in general I have always been very good in language learning, I have always struggled with listening, and no matter how much I practiced, my listening skills never really seemed to get better. My autism diagnosis + learning about Auditory Processing Disorder helped me accept my struggles and has probably saved me from giving up on my hobby. I'm slowly getting better at asking my teachers to write down new vocabulary to help me with my sound discrimination difficulties. From my school time I remember that at higher language learning levels listening exercises were made significantly harder by making them "more realistic" by e.g. adding background noise to two people talking. I failed at literally all of them, because how am I supposed to understand a foreign language in a situation where I wouldn't even understand my native language? If in real life I was asked to listen to two people talking in a noisy environment and afterwards answer questions on what they said, I'd either ask to hand me a transcript or something similar of the conversation, or to leave the environment and go to somewhere quiet. I hate being graded for lacking skills that I'm physically unable to acquire.
Hell yeah! The Scandi Noirists! Very little over exciting or even incongruous background music. Exquisitely subtle visuals. And the perfect excuse for subtitles.
There's a song that I found that emulates what APD is like when it's acting up. "Prisencolinensinainciusol" It's awesome to show people without it, what it feels like to have APD. It's funny how many often will mention the humorous faulty sound translation. I've also noticed that many of us rely on looking at lips to help correct the sound processing. Essentially light lip reading at a subconscious level.
Yes! I've always loved that song, but it never occurred to me to use it to illustrate APD to other people. I'll have to remember that for the future. And yes on the lip reading at a subconscious level!
Usually, when my brain decides to turn off the auditory processing, I need to ask the person to repeat what they had just said once. Sometimes twice. On very rare occasions, I need to ask them to repeat what they said three times and, by then, I am no longer sure if I can't understand what they're saying due to APD or just sheer anxiety. I had one experience having to ask my boss to repeat what he was saying four or five times before my brain finally decided to get back online and actually make sense of the words. Having to say things like "I SWEAR I am NOT making fun of you, can you please please please repeat that one more time?" is a moment I would love to never have to repeat.
one year before i got my asd diagnosis i was diagnosed with adhd; during that year between diagnoses, i accidentally found out about apd, and all of the sudden i understood so many problems i've always had... - it was effing mindblowing! there are at least four or five things i have always had problems with, or rather i was wondering about them 1- jazz music - it takes 5-15 seconds of this garbage (pls, no offence to people who like it, it's not against you) to give me truly awful, but really truly, truuuly awful migraine... omg i hate it so much!!!! 2 - whole my life, literally since i can remember, i thought i'm just a "night owl" therefore i cant sleep at night, and i desperately want to sleep between 6-8 a.m. to 4-5 p.m.; it turned out that at night there is no annoying, overwhelming, keeping me constantly burned out - _background noise!_ at night it is so calm and comfortable... it's a huge problem for me :/ at night i can't fall asleep because i feel this weird, deep regret that i'm loosing my precious time, when i could do so, so much 3 - police/ambulance/firetruck alarm - i can never tell where the effff is it coming from!! front? behind? left/right? i always panic a little when i hear it, but after many years of driving, i have other strategies, to notice, where alarm comes from; also i have my best, fastest reflexes while driving a car (i have no idea why xp) so i pose no danger in such situation, it is just me - confused asf - every time 4 - when the background noise is too loud, like in a club or some crowded place, or earlier in school - when i was talking with somebody, i always could perfectly hear their voice, but it was impossible for me to understand the words, and let me tell you - it is effing weird every-fukcin-time; i also have some funny tricks with my hearing ;) sth similar you have, wan you way "what?" kinda unnecessarily, because of this weird delay in the brain; i have something that helps me - when i drift away with my mind, somewhere far, far away, and suddenly someone asks me about something they've just said, its like my mind records the last few seconds of sound, and i can like replay them in my head to find out what was said, and all my teachers (and other people, but mostly teachers) got really stunned or frustrated when, even though they noticed i'm clearly not listening, i practically could always answer their question and even though my auditory processing is effed up i learn quickest, easiest and fastest through hearing information; there is something weird happening in my brain, when i hear words and phrases, i immediately see them as a pictures or micro-videos with/inside my mind (i must avoid the news because of it, it doesn't matter, they're not showing some gruesome pictures of horrible things, they are describing it and those descriptions haunt me later for many days) oh, and i also cannot remember names of people; i think i've never in my life remembered immediately someone's name ps. sorry for all the grammar and other mistakes; english isn't my native language and i have dyslexia and i might probably finf some more excuses, but it's almost 5 a.m. so it's soon the sleepy time xD also i do recognize different accents, and very often it takes me a minute or five to "adjust" my brain to different accent, and the close captions must be always on, but i almost never look at them xp and sorry for no capital letters - i was just too lazy atm to press shift ;) ps2. i fukin love being autistic, even with all those weird "problems" and challenges, which contributed to my life being miserable, just because the normies couldn't understand me - i think our different brains are amazingly awesome, super extraordinary and infinitely precious and i would never, never, ever want to be not autistic+adhd
This is so validating. I have a lot of virtual meetings with my job and they are exhausting to actually pay attention too. Now I know why! Also I realized how much I rely on lip reading when covid hit. It was infinitely harder to understand people wearing masks.
that's me! what? yeah, what, no shut up I was just telling my counselor about how when I last lived in san diego, I was across the bay from seaworld, and their fireworks echoed across and sounded like bombs and always had me on edge because I'd forget about them each night until they started. finally got my noise cancellers so I'm set for tonight (4th july in ussa) after my last exam, my ear doc said I had the best hearing he'd seen all week lol oh man, so many relatable things here. my favorite is when I finally use subs or look at song lyrics, and realize I've never known what a certain word was, or misinterpreted it forever ok young Bain! hahaha man you had me rolling throughout this one. cheers, Big O!
I was diagnosed with this in my 20's, long before anyone noticed I was autistic. Prior to that diagnosis, I used to call it "What? Oh" syndrome. I was lucky in that the audiology department where I went to get my hearing checked actually was one of the few places and audiologists that could test for Auditory Processing Disorder. Thanks for talking about this subject.
Accents are hard for me sometimes, but not usually because of being hard to understand - some accents just make me very fatigued to listen to for a long time. Others not at all, and it also depends on the speaker. The Australian accent, fortunately, is one of the ones that's easy for me to listen to! I also get tired VERY quickly from listening to podcasts - having video to follow along with is pretty important for me, though I *can* do audio-only if I need to, or occasionally. Even with video, I find I often have to rewind a bit very often to process what's just been said, so a video this length (just under 30 minutes) can take me more like 40-45 minutes on average to watch. As for pain from certain types of sounds, the high-pitched squeal of metal clothes hangers on a metal pole (like at a clothing store at the clothes rack) has caused me so much pain and distress that I've had to go wait in the car sometimes while my family was shopping. 😅 And one time, for a singing project, the sample song track I was sent to sing along with had all the different voice harmonies and background music included. I almost cried from shame because I had to ask for a track with JUST the sound of a single singer, with no background music, to follow along with because I literally couldn't pick out or understand the tune otherwise (for a song I had memorized!!!). Glad to know this could be auditory processing and not just me being "stupid"❤ And of course, there was the time I got a free hearing test at a local fair when I was a teen, was told I had perfect hearing and that I just needed to "pay attention better" to people speaking to me!
Somethig I've started doing to help me remember names is saying the person's name once they're introduced. Instead of, "Hey, nice to meet you," I'll say, "Hey, Paul. Nice to meet you." It's not completely foolproof but saying the name seems to help me recall it, especially because I'm having to consciously prompt myself to say the person's name.
There is a situation where I almost always have issues with hearing : it's when someone I don't know very well talk to me about an unexpected subject. Since I am not prepared to hear certain words from a certain lexical theme, and since I don't know this person well so I don't know much about their preferred talking subjects, I often have to make them repeat several times until my brain makes sense of the sounds they are uttering to me. It can happen with people I know well too, if the subject is very unusual/random. I also use their facial or body movements as hints about what they're saying. On the phone though, it's another issue…
In restaurant and similar environments, I can process conversations from across the room, but find myself completely incapable with those from across the table 😢
Remembering names, listening to audiobooks, learning a foreign language….cannot do it! Great, much needed video!!! You named it APD. In US I have had it referred to as CAPD. Wonderful that you not only discussed APD and autism but ended the video with tips!! ❤
I've never had issue with another language reading and writing, every word one by one. I do find translation on paper pretty quick case of foreign a is b foreign b is c so I can read fluent and match single spoken word for word quickly. But cannot speak it back as expected, and certainly cannot hear the whole foreign sentence
Machiery/electronics sometimes sound like metallic music to me. But if it makes like a repetitive or irregular pattern it ruins my day. Think a closed door trembling in its latch when theres a strong draft. Also does anyone else almost selectively muffle the outside world and escape into your thoughts and then if it’s quiet and you’re hyper fixated on something a loud sneeze can make you jump out of your skin!?
I find, that when I’m in a noisy environment, and I’m in a conversation, I start to sounds out, or speak things I’m hearing instead of what I’m ment to be saying. I went for a routine hearing test, they did a test at the end and I failed miserably. It was a test to see how I hear in a crowded room. This was done at specsavers. Well I got my diagnosis of APD I have two sons with autism and one has adhd. I definitely think as a female, I have autism but I have hidden it well. I was told as a child that a teacher believed I needed more testing, but once my mum heard that. She pulled me from that school and never investigated it ever again. I did everything to avoid work at school not knowing what was wrong with me. My children, have the best support and care and are thriving in school and doing well
I keep having my mind blown lately. Only very recently (I'm 53) did I discover that I'm most likely on the autism spectrum. It was never on my radar; frankly, I was pretty ignorant about autism. The more I read/watch videos about autism, the more things resonate with me. This is a huge one! I've been dealing with auditory processing issues for as long as I can remember. Can't deal with group conversations, absolutely despise talking on the telephone (and will put off making phone calls as long as possible, and sometimes so long that it's to my detriment), constantly mishearing people, and yes - song lyrics! (I love that so many music apps have a feature to display song lyrics now; I'm only now learning some of the lyrics I couldn't make out in songs that I've loved for 30-40 years! I kept thinking there had to be something wrong with my hearing. I had my hearing checked at my ENT's office a little over a year ago and they said, nope, your hearing is perfect. Then WTF is wrong with me? It's really encouraging learning more about why I have many of the struggles I've had, that there's not something fundamentally _wrong_ with me, my brain just functions differently from "neurotypicals".
24:08 - This is probably one ofmy biggest current fights with the world... LET ME LIVE IN A QUIET APARTMENT. I need to live in a quiet apartment. The noises from outside are driving me crazy! (no joke, I been hospitalized for a mega shutdown due to dog barks)
I saw the title of your video and clicked on it because of curiosity. Heard so often people using this name APD and I wanna learn more about it. I feel like crying after watching this. You describe exactly one of my biggest struggles since I have been a kid. Always misheard people a lot what had a lot of consequences like hearing check ups at the doctor (I was not deaf and still I am not) so people assumed I am kinda dumb that I always misheard??? I was even sent to a special ed school the first years till the adults (parent, teachers, childcare worker) figured out that I am not "that dumb" (I am sorry for describing this like that it is NOT my personal opinion more like an society thing of the 90ies in a post-soviet union society) and was sent to a regular school. A lot of the people in my environment like other kids in school thought I am kinda dumb because ofc I still had the same struggles like alway. Even as an adult now I struggle a lot with all the topics u mentioned in your video. Especially I hate places with a lot of surrounding noises, it stress me out and I cannot follow conversation directed to me well. Sorry for my English (funny enough I am ok with reading but hearing is hard because of reasons you also described so well! That is why I still sometimes need subtitles even with an actually not so bad education). Struggles to understand names properly, struggles with lyrics, struggles with understanding announcements through speakers... I cannot say what is NOT fitting in my life experiences. But I wanna say thanks for your educational work it helps me lot to understand more where doctors, (childcare) educators and others went wrong that I even felt that "everything is my own fault", yeah even feeling the discomfort with some sounds and noises. Oh and ofc I am still not diagnosed because "I am not autistic enough for the diagnosis but too quirky to be normal" (Also not my own words and opinions) and so I need to learn all by myself how to live a normal life with any official support only relying on my own research and my friends. Thanks again for your great work I feel finally understood by someone...
21:00 exactly this. Conversations in noisy environments, especially if there are many similar sounds, like people talking at the same time. It all blends together and is hard to separate. I can hear them speak, but not really make sense of it.
6:11 "...sometimes the autistic brain can struggle if we can't VISUALLY SEE the person talking to us." One of the many major issues I've had (and still have) is with people wearing masks (aside from my childhood trauma regarding masks). The last few years have been an absolute nightmare for me, just like Caroline Binder describes in her comment at 20:54. Phone calls have ALWAYS been something I've avoided for that same reason. So glad to know it's because of my autism! I frequently mis-hear what my husband says -- most of the time it's extremely comical, what I thought he said. I'm constantly saying, "What?" because I really didn't hear what he said, so the poor guy has to repeat just about everything he says. He has a beautiful speaking voice but perhaps the pitch or tone is one that my ears find difficult to hear or interpret, as I don't seem to have the same issue with other people (unless their mouth is covered in fabric...). My husband's always telling me I have "amazing hearing" because I'll hear the tiniest things. The downside is that I also have misophonia -- I cannot STAND "whistling S's," smacking P's, vocal fry, upspeak, etc. Those things are literally painful for me. Going one step further, I also cannot stand to be out in public where stores are *blaring* songs -- they seem to not have access to a volume control -- and then those songs, usually 80's crap, get stuck in my head FOR WEEKS AND SOMETIMES MONTHS, 24/7. It's an absolute nightmare for me. Sometimes all it takes is a few notes of a song for it to get stuck in my head. I have a degree in classical music, so I naturally am keenly sensitive to music and sound, but the "earworms" are the absolute worst. And when I say 24/7, I mean it: I've woken in the middle of the night to find some song playing in my head, which may not even be the song that was playing on repeat when I went to bed. It's beyond maddening.
13:35 Oh was NEVER funny to me. I remember one of the ways I taught myself to speak is to sing songs. A whole cartoon theme song I could sing except for one line. My brother happened to walk in the room on the one line I got wrong, He yelled at me "If you gonnna sing it, sing it RIGHT". And I stopped myself from singing my favorite cartoon theme song from Tiny Toon Adventures. I was so young, Thinking on this old story I feel like I am about to cry.
24:26 In high school, I always sat in front of the class. Easy to listen to the teacher. And the people in the back who do whatever they feel like doing are farther away and not so distracting.
I’ve been tested. Exceptional hearing!!! Yet I must say I’m hard of hearing so I can get a repeat. Names! Ugg. Faces I remember names not so much. Usually I recall the first letter of the name. It’s all all about the processing 😢. Yes, ASL helps. Although deaf can have dismissive attitude towards hearing people. I found that I needed to ask my deaf friends to slow down on their signing I even need time to process that !!! I seriously do not fit anywhere. I’ve stopped trying. I actually do fit when I’m in nature so that’s my friend I guess 😊 I’m pretty good at lip reading since childhood. It all takes so much energy. I just don’t have the energy anymore. 60 yrs and I’m exhausted
1) I came to the conclusion that I'm autistic a few months ago at age 50 after 18 months of accelerating research & introspection 2) I was also diagnosed with hearing loss in kindergarten; a few years ago I had my hearing tested for the first time in a few decades and it's a significant enough loss now that I should be wearing hearing aids (I'm on Disability and can never afford them). 3) I *also* think I may have APD, but the things that make me think that, did not exist for me when I was a kid? I have an incredibly vivid memory of being at my family's for dinner (mom & brother) with my then boyfriend, and after supper we were sitting in the living room - as normal - chatting animatedly about who knows what number of topics - as normal - with the TV on in the background - as normal... and I lost the ability to stay "on top" of the conversation. I could make out a few words, and then it was all a jumble in my head. I'd try to shake it off and re-focus, and I'd make out a few more words, and then it would disintegrate into a jumble again. It was so striking and different that I even commented on it; I told them what was happening and everyone stopped talking and looked at me in confusion because the TV wasn't even as loud as it sometimes is in these situations. I think the responses were something like "well that's weird.... " and then the conversation went on (we didn't even turn the TV off!) with me basically trying to look like I was following but just tuning out. It's only happened more and more, and in a more and more unworkable way, in the decades since that. And yeah, phone calls (or zoom, except that at least I can lip read there) are the literal worst. Any time I've brought it up with doctors or psychiatrists, they dismiss it because there's documented hearing loss. So my questions for the comments section are: - can you develop APD all of a sudden one day without there being some triggering event (by which I mean, like, a stroke, or a blow to the head, or idk, a viral infection or something)? or - is it possible that I've had APD all my life but it's pretty minor and I was always able to just concentrate my way through it? Is "minor APD" a thing? But then as my hearing deteriorated little by little as I aged (even just, like, aging as in growing up), all of a sudden I got to a level of hearing loss where it started causing problems I couldn't concentrate-my-way-through, with the APD? 16:00 with Laurel's question - oh wow, yeah. Even in that very first experience I described above, I've ALWAYS described it as "it's like someone's jamming the signal in my brain" or "it's like there's a screen of TV static in my brain that's hiding what I'm trying to listen to, except the static isn't actually making any sound" (descriptions I used lonnnng before I ever heard about APD, which I only learned about in the past 6 months) but "tuning a radio station, but some stations come in clearly and others can't ever be made satisfyingly clear" is another really good analogy to me. I guess maybe because it meshes so well with my TV static analogy.
I've started emailing places that normally require you to ring them (e.g. government departments) and telling them about my autism and that I struggle on the phone. It's a good way to be able to avoid the issues with phones.
How my APD manifests (was born with ASD..) - let me know, if this sounds familiar: - Others speaking means I hear "blablabla" and after their sentence I need to invest energy in my brain to guess the words and guess what the sentence probably was. It took a long time to get it to over 95% matching, but takes huge amounts of energy and drains me quickly. And when drained, my accuracy drops completely. - I often don't understand people on the phone, even worse, phone conferences with some tiny speaker on the table. Had embarrasing situations when I had to lead the conference occationally, because I just couldn't understand, no matter how much I tried to.. - Used headphones and turned up the volume really loud, that way 1:1 conversations were almost perfect ! This actually saved energy, because I didn't need to guess as much. Still costs a ton more energy than NT people spend on it.. - Sometimes answering people and they get silent or withdraw - later you find out, you misunderstood and answered to something completely different and they thought, you were nuts or pychologically challenged or stupid to answer the wrong way - when really you just misinterpreted 2 or 3 words.. - When on low energy, I can't focus in meetings on what people say. It was often very important and I needed to listen, but every few seconds I lost connection and drifted, I just had no energy to stay "tuned" to what was said. (only happens on low energy). Huge impact on job and also in private ! - you sit with multiple people, all of a sudden, 2 people start a different conversation, while the person you are talking to is waiting for you to continue, but you can't, because next to you those other 2 are talking. You need to wait because you can neither speak nor focus and listen while next to you, there's another conversation.. - you enjoy a movie with a friend, the friend starts a conversation all of sudden. I tell him, TV or Talk, not both. This is actually annoying. Why watch a movie but then just talk and not understand anything at all.. !? - not sure if this is APD or just ASD, but putting in tight ear plugs to block out ALL sounds, is like a vacation. I feel so wonderful and relaxed when all noises are gone, at least for a few hours per day (if I can afford to). Anybody else ? Is this typical, or are there many more variations ?
I came across a new brain retraining technique that eye doctors are doing. They use lenses with bent light and a bell to rewire the ears and eyes together. They said a lot of people with autism and people who have had concussions ears and eyes aren't wired properly in the brain. Once they rewire them properly, it makes some of these issues better for people with Autism. It's a really new thing.
It sounds a bit like a development of Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (EMDR). I've seen some things that say that there are studies that question the effectiveness of EMDR, so I'd be cautious about dropping a lot of dough on having something like that. It might not actually harm you (just your bank balance) but discrepancies between what's promised and what you actually get can be harmful.
I don't think it's EDMR. It's just rewiring the eyes and ear back together properly in the brain. I can't find anyone anywhere near where I live to do it at the moment anyways. I'm always careful. They had patients who actually went thru the rewiring and they said it was life changing. Like I said tho it's new. So I usually wait awhile until more people have done it so I know if it's safe. I've been in a brain retraining program for some chronic illnesses for over a year and I'm 90% recovered after being very sick for 21 years. Brain retraining is a powerful tool.
Remembering names, listening to audiobooks, learning a foreign language….cannot do it! Great, much needed video!!! You named it APD. In US I have had it referred to as CAPD.
Ha! This one's an absolute "Hell-yes", for me. I'm a "suspected since childhood, but only recently diagnosed" (age; late thirties) Au'DHD-er (ASD+ADHD), and the number of times, growing up, that anyone speaking to me, directly, in an even mildly distracting setting (could've been, just another family-member, walking by, outside the room), ended up angry/frustrated with me, cause I'd either keep saying "Umm...sorry, what?" - to their face -, or not say it and carry on doing exactly whatever I was, before our interaction, while trying to "piece together"/guess, what exactly, they'd just said,...is uncountable, all too frequent. So I ALSO got my hearing checked as a child, and when told it was fine, all subsequent incidents passed to being automatically assumed/branded as me being deliberately obnoxious... Got me into LOTS of undue trouble; at home, school, out'n'about,...etc.!... Case in point being, that now, I'm watching this near an open window, and everytime a car or person goes by, what you're saying gets momentarily drowned out/replaced, with the sound of a car or footsteps & chatter. I can see your face keeps moving, when my ears hear "...and so, if you - Gniaoum! - that means you're - Klippy-klappy, klop-klop, yadda-yaddah -, which is why, when it happens, we - Sh-sh, sh-sh, wahen! - and this never fails to surprise people."... It's awful! I equally can't talk with anyone, while washing dishes, for example; what with the water cutting on and off, and the sound of the dishes moving, and the frothy sound of soap-foam on the sponge, and every feeble little "tink" or "klink"-sound, when placing the dishes on the drying-rack...🙉🤦🏻♀️ Another thing that happens for me, is that, when conversing with someone (although, it really happens with everything), I need to be fully attentive, "locked-in" on the interaction, as I practically can't process any more than a single activity/event/thing, at a time; To remain with the example of dish-washing with/near another person: I'd actually take twice as long, and end up washing up, half as well as I normally do alone, AND end up quite frustrated/nerve-wrecked/overwhelmed, from trying to conduct two, simultaneous tasks, which demand two separate modes of processing (- if that makes sense). Edit: This reminds me of a coordination-game, we'd play sometimes, as kids; wherein you tap on the top of your head with one hand, while running the other hand across your belly, in circles - at the same time. The goal was to see, who could do this, for longest (I think). I was absolutely *terrible* at it! 😂😅 Anyways; thank you for shedding light on this particular trait, and how it can affect our lives, in your usual, very personable, warm, humorous, no-bs, yet uplifting and well-articulated way. Much appreciated! (And sorry for the lengthy read; I do tend to be quite "wordy".)😬🙊😅🤓
Be careful with the voice-to-text apps. Sometimes they “autocorrect” the way we do. 🤦🏾♀️ 😂 It can be helpful for others to SEE 👀 what they’re actually saying and/or how they don’t actually pronounce and/or annunciate the way they think they do though.
18:28 I was waiting for this one, this is something I know about myself, still learning about autism and how it does affect / has affected me, is there a connection here? Yes, there is. Thank you for sharing. The more I watch this channel, the more I feel I've found my 'in' group.
APD has been the biggest struggle my entire life, even though I was only diagnosed 2 years ago at age 60. My hyperacuity has had me wearing earplugs everywhere for most of my life, and I have such a horrible time isolating sounds that we can just forget having a conversation in a restaurant. Or a car with the radio on. Or over a cell phone. I retain almost nothing that comes in my ears.
Definitely relate to a lot and some I see in my fiance, we are pretty sure he’s audhd. I needed the giggles 😆thanks Orion. Liked the “stars of Orion” comment
The more I learn, the more I wonder.... I've always been told I don't pay attention. Nearly everything you described here is spot on to what I have experienced for my whole life, I'm 61. I have 2 autistic grandsons and learning about it has made me wonder if this has been the reason for so many things I've experienced in my life.
I had an eye injury and for more than a decade i could not see the center of my field of view so i had to scan words back and forth to grasp them. My brain substituted some pretty funny guesses and for a second the guess would actually appear in my brain until the correction updated it. It reminds me of how hearing words is for me.
This was so helpful. I had no idea there’s a name for what I have been experiencing… and yes, I just thought I was broken… I now accept myself and will advocate for myself better now
As a teacher with ASD, I struggle so much to remember instructions and then meet those deadlines. Sometimes someone will mention something and I think I have heard it for the first time but they assure my they have had the conversation before! It’s the Bain of my life!!
For me it’s definitely more noticeable when I’m trying to look someone in the eye. I’ve described it as when the adults talk in a Peanuts cartoon where they portray adult voices as just a trombone with one of those cup things over the horn making “womp womp womp” sounds instead of words. When I’m struggling to hear what someone says because I’m looking them in the eyes, I can still hear the noises coming out of their faces, but it’s like there are no words happening. When I was younger, I could often just “rewind” in my head and re-listen to what they said and then listen to the words and “hear” what they said after replaying the noises in my head, but as I’ve gotten older, I seem to have mostly lost that ability. It’s only recently after rediscovering autistic content on RUclips that I’ve realized that the loss of that ability has also correlated to how difficult I find navigating everything else in the neurotypical world. I have a suspicion that it’s less that I’ve lost that ability rather than that I’ve lost the capacity to be able to use it at all. There have become so many other “important” demands out of my life that I can’t even begin to have those resources available to use anymore when I need them. They’re just “gone”, and when I try to bring them back and use them, I very quickly reach a conclusion that in order to be able to successfully use that skill again, I would have to give up a whole lot of other things that it’s become necessary to depend on for other, more important or crucial things.
Love this, thank you! To add on to the suggestion of noise-cancelling headphones - I'm a big fan of electronic ear muffs. Being earmuffs (PPE) they will reduce all noise and are very comfortable, but each ear cup has a microphone on the outside and speaker inside, which allows the wearer to "turn up" the volume of their surroundings if they feel the need to. Most are tuned specifically for human vocal frequencies too, which can make listening to conversation much more comfortable. They also only amplify sounds that are under ~80-85 db and turn off for anything uncomfortably loud, and the speakers are almost perfectly placed for people with auditory processing issues. I own 5 different pairs, and the model I like best is the 3M Peltor Sport Tac. They are mostly meant for shooting and hunting, but, as they are PPE, they will be a tax deduction for many occupations. They are also really rugged and tough, and will survive the most clumsy of users. Turn the electronics off if you are feeling overstimulated and need the world to be a bit quieter, or turn them up if you want to take in the natural sounds around you (you will be able to hear things you never knew were there).
When I'm in a group and out and about, I hear all the noises at the same time. There is no picking one, unless it's louder than everything else. If I'm cooking, and I'm playing music, and I have the fan above the stove on, and my partner tries to talk to me, I have to shut everything else off in order to hear him. Too many sounds, can't hear.
I watch absolutely everything with subs, I retain things far better when i read information! Its like reverse dyslexia! I always hated school lessons because the information is just going in one ear and out the other, i need visual or written information
I grew up in an environment that was always either so quiet you could hear a pin drop or insanely loud to the point that difficulty hearing was expected. So while I had my suspicions very early on, my hearing issues were easy to brush off. When I moved into a new environment and got a job at a busy coffee shop, I thought I was going deaf! Thankfully, I improved my auditory processing a lot during my time there, but I still struggle to get some people to accomodate my auditory processing needs and cannot go into extra hard-to-hear environments like trains and airports without an aide of some sort to translate announcements for me.
This is a problem that I've suffered for years before my diagnosis. Split into groups for discussion, social gatherings, work instruction ... Thank you for clearing up this component of Autism that wears me down, which is why phone calls are a problem but texts/emails are preferable.
You mean it's not "Lucy in the sky with colitis"? (TV Show, The Nanny) Bane!😂😀 Love it!😂😀 Another great video! Thank you! Take care, Orion! Thanks for the mention, it made me feel helpful.😀
Thank you for this video! So many of the situations discussed resonated with me. I appreciate knowing it's not just me. I almost started crying at one point because I've thought this was just me all this time.
As someone who learning hes autistic i do have issues with speech i also have issues with hearing in my right ear im deaf in my left ear so sometimes i have to ask again and again about the same words i always thought that was because of how i was but now i know that its because im autistic i will also get artistic and autistic mix up because they sounds the same
Where’s my closed caption peeps at??!? 🙌🏾
here
Here. I use them on everything.
Not on RUclips, for some reason (maybe because a lot of RUclips is people talking directly to 'me' and that's a lot easier to follow) but definitely when watching some dramatisisation. I have subtitles on for everything dramatic.
Right here!
Lol Cc AND volume up 🤣
I have ADHD and APD from brain damage in a car crash. This is my exact experience every day. This is very hard to live with. I have never heard it described better than this. People, do not give up. Do whatever it takes to be as command content as you can be. God bless you all.
I’m a newly AuDHD diagnosed elder (age 64). This video literally blew my mind. The things I’m learning have been epic! I’ve been told I misunderstand 100% of what I hear. I’ve been fired for insubordination because of it, and had many misunderstandings and mistakes with my husband. I’ve learned to say, “so what I heard you say is” (fill in the blank). Every stinking time they say, “No. That’s not what I said”. So. Let me get this straight… This has been auditory processing disorder with autism my whole freaking time?! MIND. BLOWN. 😮
The delays!!! The poorly annunciated words! When water is running or there’s wind! YES!!
Might be unrelated, but if any of my ‘fave songs’ start playing I literally can’t focus on what anyone else is saying regardless of how serious the topic may be.
This is what actually started my journey to finding out I’m autistic after 40yrs, during a convo with another mom where I broke down apologizing (in between verses) and she responded, “That’s okay. I’ve got 3 autistic daughters at home just like you.” 😳
Bless her!!!
Amen another water running and wind blowing! ohhh it's like torture.
Mate, this is so relatable! The fave songs bit, lol, loud background noises such as what you said, running water and wind! lol. Thank you so much for your comment, very validating and that lady was a blessing to you 🙂 All the very best
I am exactly the same with my favourite music. If it's playing I won't talk and no one must interrupt 😮.
Wow. This was the biggest confirmation of self diagnosis that I am in fact ✨ autistic ✨
Took about 40 years here too.
Yes -- conversations in groups are terrible. I usually ask for instructions and requests in writing if I can get them and use closed captions when they're available.
I have a 35-60% hearing loss and tinnitus.
I also have asd.
Double whammy.
Sooooo much of this video applies to me. It sucks and it's very difficult at times to the point where I have to smile and nod and give up trying to figure out what's going on. The social anxiety that stems from this is very real.
I am deaf in one ear (and a hearing aid won't work completely deaf) and I have asd. It made my entire life difficult. Yes at one point all I do is not my head and hope I don't agree to anything weird because its so tire to ask people to repeat themselves or enunciate clearly. This whole video describes my everyday life :(
@@BladeX11883 thank you for sharing. Crappy hearing runs in my family, so I'm sure I'll have hearing aids in my future.
Good luck and I hope it becomes more easily manageable.
@@Bubbalou21 after 40 years it has to some extent, however, I originally thought these issues were due to my deaf ear (late diagnosis), but it didn't explain some of the other issues like things sometimes seemed louder even though can't hear. Growing up it was manageable due to knowing I was hearing impaired and got accommodations more easily, like preferred seating and whatnot, but it's not visible disability so it can be still hard to navigate the world and people. At this age, I sometimes give up putting in the effort to hear because I am so burned out.
Same. Also I have Meniere's Disease that flares up when I am in burnout, which tinitus becomes louder and I also get a weird sh sh noise in my head followed by dissyness (sort of virtigo, but it is not positional vertigo). I relate to you.
@@bennettcain635wait, that sh sh sound in your head has a name?? I chopped it up to having tinnitus.
I learned American Sign Language because I was sure I was losing my hearing. It has come in handy though lol that's a good one 😂 but yes ASL is essential because I ended up marrying my cute husband who is Deaf and Autistic.
Aww :D
For a man that must be lovely because he doesn’t have to listen to the yapping. Makes for a peaceful relationship, I’m sure. 😂
Guess it all worked out!
@@HerefortheLove Some men yap as well...
Notes, no problem. Harmonic intervals, no problem. Instrumental timbres, no problem. Lyrics ... uh ... well, " ... when I dressed a Porsche weasel, she refused to be the master ..."
I don't know what that's meant to be but I like it just as it is!
😂😂 we have musician here
I used to marvel at people who can make out the words in songs. I was convinced everyone reads the lyric sheet and doesnt admit it until i found out im not the only one
I'm so glad you posted this!!! I can relate 100%.
I can remember all the notes, phrases, intervals, harmony....but words....nope. scatt singing has saved me numerous times
Same here. I can also figure people's tone speaking relatively well - background in music as a kid definitely helps to finetune hearing in such ways. But lyrics at often incomprehensible. Often I don't get them even wrong, if they are in English. In my language I might just get them wrong.
25:52 😂 reading the close captions while hearing you saying " something about the close captions.."😂✌️they help with ADHD too
Before I got my autism diagnosis much later as an adult I got my ears checked as a kid because I kept misunderstanding people or couldn‘t hear them very well in noisy environments. Turned out I actually was/am having a few deficits with hearing but nothing too major (runs in the family though). But when I got a hearing aid device it actually became even WORSE. I could differentiate noises even LESS and I got severe headaches after less than an hour wearing them. Even though we kept adjusting the device over and over again for months it just never got any better. So eventually I didn‘t wear it anymore because it really crippled my mental capacity. It felt like it pushed me to a mental burnout by overwhelming me in record time.
And now that I have my autism diagnosis it makes so much sense. Because hearing a little bit less actually helps when you’re having auditory filtering difficulties. The challenge with differentiating noises and voices of people remain either way but at least I don‘t get overwhelmed by noises as easily and fast because I don‘t hear so well. When your brain is having trouble filtering noises it is actually beneficial (to your mental energy at least) if there is less to filter after all.
Interesting. I feel there is some overlap between autism and low latent inhibition (neural pattern where your subconscious doesn't filter as much information, which makes you incredibly observant of things others are oblivious to, until your conscious mind gets overwhelmed with all the info).
Your description makes me think you were experiencing such an overload. It also makes me wonder how much of APD is that much less information from our ears is filtered before it gets to our conscious processing.
This would explain that delay we do when we don't respond in a NT amount of time. And when we can't distinguish song lyrics or conversations while background noise present or when echo chamber acoustics exist. We are drinking from a firehose of sound. Too much to process.
Thanks for saving me money on a hearing aid. I was thinking about it, but this makes sense.
@@Baptized_in_Fire. It was 15 years ago though so I don‘t know how far these devices have come since then. I also didn‘t have my autism diagnosis back then so maybe it could‘ve been adjusted to my specific filtering difficulties if that would‘ve been known. I don‘t know.
I personally have just come to accept my bad hearing as a useful tool to be able to handle noisy environments longer and better at the cost of sometimes misunderstanding people or not hearing them at all (where the whole stigma of being arrogant and ignoring people and not showing any interest comes from). But I also just don‘t want to go through that painful process of adjusting for a hearing aid again. But if the downsides of bad hearing are bigger for you than the upside then it can‘t hurt to still inform yourself whether these things are able to accommodate for people like us nowadays. Wouldn‘t want to discourage you from that if it could still help you.
@@x3SayuriChan thanks for your thoughtful reply.
It's annoying (near impossible) to try to hear someone in a noisy environment. I can't filter out trucks and equipment/engine noises, other conversations, etc., from what the person in front of me is saying, it's all a blur. I think a hearing aid might make it a louder blur. Ear plugs helped in certain situations but made others worse. I think it may be the same for a hearing aid. It would have to be super advanced tech. Idk maybe electronic earplugs like shooters wear would work better. Block loud noises but allow quiet speech thru. Not sure. It's a thought.
Anyway, thank you for your feedback! Appreciated.
i have hearing loss too, the infamous 4k notch, and it is not the main cause of my difficulty understanding language, IMO.
I remember when I went to an audiologist and otolaryngologist for ear infections when I was in high school, and after the infection cleared up, I insisted to them that I still could not hear, and the doc got a little angry with me, since everything seemed normal, and I guess he thought I was seeking attention or something. I was not. I had no idea why I could not hear despite having "normal" hearing, and they sort of dismissed my concerns.
People in my freshman year of high school (in one of the more minor forms of bullying) called me 'earwax' because I had such difficulty. Having trouble hearing is so funny, ha ha!
That was before the hearing damage that caused the 4k notch, which happened in my senior year of high school.
I have always had auditory processing issues and auditory defensiveness, since I can remember, but I did not get dx'd until I was in my early 30s.
Parsing auditory language is cognitively intensive, and any competing noises make it nearly impossible. I have a great deal of tinnitus too, and it seems to act as a competing noise, drowning out quiet sounds, even though my audiologist insisted that it does not work that way, since there actually is no sound. (To her credit, though, she also noted that a lot of my difficulty understanding the spoken word is not consistent with my hearing loss, so there is some other factor there, paraphrasing her.)
Had a partner who used to weaponize this against me. This is abuse. They’d mumble all the time, especially in loud environments or during arguments. Also, they’d get angry when I’d laugh at myself for mis-hearing. They also startled me on purpose and would act offended when i startled at unexpected sounds.
Have confidence! Don’t let these ppl undermine your self esteem or gaslight you with your disability.
❤️
@@eponymoususer8923 my wife does that too, threatens too leave if I don't get diagnosed so she can get a disability payment from me.
I'm the NT spouse so am in the other end of this type of abuse......told I'm obsessed with constant noise and brainwash myself with podcasts constantly
....meantime it's normal daily housework whilst listening to various topics on podcasts. I'm not allowed to anymore, if I do, it's called me having a messed up/scrambled brain thatsxall over the place . I was so confused by this, especially as I was so careful not to dominate with my podcasts, I'd watch the volume and even use earphones . But I thought it's reasonable to sometimes listen without earphones since I'm the only one doing housework...but I'm told I'm obsessed with noise. It's projection. 😢
0:56 wait...REALLY😮? That's ALSO an autism related thing? I did go to the testing, they did tell me my ears work perfect and same time I am extremly noise sensitive with bothering sounds.
I am really exited now to hear more😊
This is such an accurate description of me. I have always passed hearing tests just fine. A few years ago I went to an audiologist specifically to address my difficulties hearing with background noise. She told me my hearing is fine and that the problem was with my brain. However, she gave me no additional information. Nothing on what its cause might be, or what to do about it. It wasn't until recently that I realized I almost certainly have autism (I don't have an official diagnosis), and that this is a common issue.
Very same experience here too. Last time I had my ears checked, the audiologist actually said "It's all in your head." We both laughed at how that sounded but she did clarify that she meant it was how my brain interprets sound.
I just let people I interact with know that I have sensory processing issues and if I make them repeat it's not to be a jerk but because I genuinely didn't hear them or didn't hear them properly. Seems to help.
Omg thank you yes yes yes. I hear everything or nothing.
Absolutely no ability to filter anything out. And i have hyperacusis meaning I hear everything louder.
I once identified someone eating Nerds candies over the phone because of the specific sound Nerds makes in their little boxes. The person I was talking to said I was exactly right. I also heard someone using a towel over the phone, like in the movie _Wolf,_ and they asked how I knew they had just used a towel. So yeah, hearing things really well can be very distracting at times.
@WorthlessDeadEnd lol I will never forget the look of shock and fear on the face of the nurse distracted by the bad paramedic. The paramedic was convinced that I was a drug user and was saying, "Just give her narcan" (could have killed me, btw). The nurse at one point said, "She is so creepy she's staring right at us." In a hushed tone. I responded, "Yeah, and I can hear you too!"
In that instant, the paramedic left, and nurses looked afraid, knowing they had been ignoring their jobs, scattered, and got to work.
I had at that point beed ignored in the ER, no care at all for 40 min. The paramedic was ignoring and mistreating me for 2 hours by that point. Not only was she wrong, but I was lucky to be alive.
I had given my healthy heart angina following 3 or 4 faining spells due to panic attacks, MCAS induced slowly progressing anaphylaxis and vasovagal syncope, With anemia.
That nurse KNEW she could have cost me her job and my life in that instant. The absolute dred and shame was written on her face.
I like to think it was the situation that made her take her job more seriously and potentially saved a life.
@CherrysJubileeJoyfully Thank you for sharing your story. I am sorry that happened to you.
I once gave myself a panic attack while I was obsessively writing down my thoughts and fears onto a sheet of paper that I had found. My hands started freezing up and went numb. It affected my writing, which became larger, sloppier, and started going crooked on the paper. My mouth and chin froze up and went numb. I was hyperventilating. It felt like my body was under attack. I knew that I had done it to myself, but I was so deeply entrenched in my feelings in that moment that I had to force myself to put down the pen and paper and ask a friend for a glass of water. I started feeling better after I drank and had stopped writing down my obsessive fears on that paper.
@WorthlessDeadEnd I don't want to alarm you because that may have been a typical freeze response, but, I think you should really consider a sleep study.
Paralysis from strong emotions. What I describe as "kill bill vol 1 big toe" (where the bride is urgeing her big toe to move. She feels it she knows it can move she just has to will it to hard enough to convince it ) is a possible sign of narcolepsy. A VERY VERY misunderstood condition. That type of Paralysis is called cataplexy and is only associated with narcolepsy 1.
Hopefully it was just a freeze response but if you struggle with stressors, depression, anxiety, insomnia, hypersomnia, movement in your sleep, low appetite, forget to eat or drink, extream difficulty waking up, or if you can run out the door as soon as you wake up. You can sleep anywhere , or You were diagnosed bipolar or borderline (most common misdiagnosis)
Especially if you dream very quickly. these can be signs of narcolepsy and with treatment, life is so much easier.
@WorthlessDeadEnd other common co-occuring conditions include
Asd/adhd
Celiac/chrones/diverticulitis
Ehler's danlos
Mast cell activation
Pots or vasovagal syncope
Also if you have a History of
Head trauma
H1n1
And a few other viruses
Mine was triggered by Meningoencephalitis from chicken pox.
Basically it's genetic but it needs a trigger event.
Nailed it! I almost had an argument with hearing specialist years ago when he told me I had good hearing! And the many hilarities thru life when I've misunderstood words from others. Thanks yet again for another life long confusion making sense ❤
Hearing specialists should have some training about autism.
My children and I both would have been diagnosed sooner if audiologists understood that our symptoms were most likely due to our autistic brains.
As a student audiologist thank you for making this video on APD. It's very helpful for people with APD or friends/family/coworkers to have this resource to understand what exactly is happening to the hearing of people with APD alongside how they can better communicate to them. The misconceptions that people with normative audiograms have normal hearing, alongside that everyone with hearing difficulties just needs the volume turned up on become the most counterproductive with cases of APD.
I'm not (yet) convinced I have autism, but I do share a lot of the same issues. This video in particular. I absolutely have APD, get startled all the time and have Misophonia.
The problem with “closed captions” is that they’re frequently wrong!
I use captions on everything even though I have perfect hearing. I adore Orion's Australian accent, but I still use captions. But yes, some captions are funny. I have perfect hearing, but watching the show and seeing the caption not match makes me laugh. I wish I had captions when talking to people. My brain forgets what they are saying, mixes things up, or the background noise gets in the way. If I had captions, it would help. That's why I'm glad the instructors at the gym in the workout classes wear microphones I would get mixed up.
Some of the mistakes are quite hilarious, though!
Yes! I can't deal with the automatic captions on RUclips because it's more effort trying to process two totally different sentences at once than just processing the audio on its own, LOL - I only really like the captions that are manually matched to what's been said (and are done properly)
@@RebekahAmberClark: Try watching closed captions that translate Chinese (either Mandarin or Cantonese) to English. The technology clearly cannot cope with tonal languages and so some of the translations are hilarious.
@RebekahAmberClark The Kdrama's or korean channels with English subtitles are a real brain teaser for me. They are speaking their language, and my brain has to focus on the English subtitles, and they are adding a lot to it, I kinda get confused for a minute. But I love Kdrama's and korean channels with English subtitles. But if they add extra in the same sentence, I have to pause it.
this is messed up!! this is EXACTLY what I was telling my psych during my screening! I had no words to describe it, though...
My wife, daughter and I were going to a restaurant. I dropped them off at the door with the usual instructions- a booth on the outside periphery of the room.
I parked the car, walked in and the hostess led us to a table in the center of the room. I literally said, "nope," turned around and walked out. What I recall, (because these situations are confusing to me; i don't have words to describe) (well, now I do) is what seems like I'm looking through a horizontally-oblong oval occupying approximately 1/3 center of my visual field. Outside that oval is fuzz, like TV static/snow, or wavy lines; whatever it is, i can't see through it. The commotion is what I cannot deal with, though. Maybe I don't have words for it, because I don't recognize it. It is like the loudest, monotone, consistently-pitched-audience-talking commotion, with an overlying harmonic resonance. Through it all, i can't understand people speaking to me. I have to ask "what?" all the time, because their words are gibberish. I mean, they are words, but not the words they are saying; like my brain randomly switched the words.
But she said it's social anxiety.
I have worked in healthcare for 18 years and have never had a problem with people. Crowds and groups are loud and stimulating. I avoid and abhor the COMMOTION!!! NOT the people; people I am indifferent, but would rather be alone, because I feel I am different from everyone else (aside from my close family).
Now the very next topic was ALSO an issue. She says, "First, I want to say, you are VERY bright! However, you have difficulty thinking."
I felt like she kissed my cheek gently as she disemboweled me. I just stared, like, "Whaaa??" She said I am intelligent, but my brain has difficulty switching tasks, topics, etc. It is slow to do so. Causes anxiety when pressured to do so. Which makes sense, because I prefer written communication (texts, emails, etc.), due to randomness of spoken conversations and the jumping between topics. I can do it, but I misunderstand what people are saying a lot
Do you get migraines?
On the subject of accent, don't worry about yours Orion, I am not even a native English speaker and I can understand you perfectly. In fact I like that you speak very clearly, must be all those radio years !
13:19 Orion, I feel STRONG relation to the issues I get with other people getting mad at me for not remembering their names.... Now imagine the inability to remember names, coupled with Face Blindness. Yeah, oh boy, I cant recognize someone;s face, and I cant remember their name, got me set up for a whopping terrible time making ANY friends who think I forgot "themselves" when I merely forgot their identifying features. For example, a neighbor has a dog, who wanted me to not address them as "ma'am" and did want me to remember their name and While I could remember their dog, I could never remember the lady and the face attached to this dog, every time I saw the dog, I could swear I was seeing this dog being leashed by a complete stranger every time. With enough repetition, she helped me remember her name, by repeating her name for over a minute. Oh my goodness, that repeating is exactly what I needed... only remembering her face is left to the unknown.
Thank you for this! I never understood this! And solutions! 🎉
This may be helpful for people with audio processing disorder:
Carry a notebook and write down anything important as people talk.
When I write information down, I usually remember it, and as an added bonus, I can look back through my notes, and I have almost all the information while most everyone else can not remember correctly what actually happened. This is a great way to ancor interactions in reality instead of remembered emotions and wishful thinking on their part. I gained a huge amount of credibility and reliability by talking notes. I blew everyone else out of the water.
This works very good for me. For example when in university I always took notes, allthough there was a PDF we could look at at home. Well no, I need my own words..also, if I dont take notes my brain tends to go an a nice journey and I daydream and I dont remember a word that was said
Unexpected noises 100%
And! Background music in RUclips videos when someone is talking
Thx for the vid. I'm a late in life diagnosis and this is just one of many things I'm learning. I thought I was just a visual learner. But I have real problems with processing. I was in Naval ROTC as a young man. I always had trouble with a long list of verbal orders.
3:00 as a Highly Sensitive Person l struggled my whole life with background noises. Very far noises block my hearing of the person in front of me 🤦 Man what a struggle living next to a busy street 😭 moving cars hurt my ears.. I also have a history of ear infections my whole childhood and still get them from time to time.. I'm 30! I'm someone who stays silent for way too long, loove the peace and hearing my inner monologues 😅, I also don't like yelling or loud people 🤦 what a pain man! I'm also almost always late to respond, as you said it's the slow processing; it's worse on the phone 😅and OMG with outer noises pain... Auditory hypersensitivity 👂
PS: loove the Aussie accents 🤭
The first sentence you typed that is me absolutely! I can hear but I usually can't hear the person in front well if there's background noises or a lot of people speaking at once
gorilla 🦍 cigarette 🚬 gorilla smoking cigarette 🚬🦍
I found myself thinking, "Yes!" to virtually everything you mentioned. To make matters worse, I developed tinnitus about 7 years ago, so now I'm permanently in a noisy environment.
My wife likes to make phone calls with her cell phone in speakerphone mode. That makes things sound so distorted that they can be physically painful. And those ASMR videos that became all the rage? They are anything but relaxing; they tend to produce agitation in me.
For about 15 years, one of my responsibilities at work was to do technical interviews by telephone. I had to process what they said, understand it technically, and respond with an appropriate follow up question. That was incredibly difficult.
A tip: try to block other kinds of sensory input when you need to concentrate on listening to someone. For example, I have to close my eyes to make more processing power available.
I've been trying to train my family to use my name (or "Dad" or "Grampa") to get my attention, and then wait for me to acknowledge them before continuing to speak. That lets me have time to reduce other sensory input, and use as much processing power as I can muster to focus on what they're saying.
And, slow down RUclips videos, and use the button (or press "J") to jump back a few seconds, when I'm having a hard time understanding.
"I have to close my eyes to make more processing power available." I do that too.
My eyes take up a lot of processing power because they're not all that great and my brain carefully fills in a lot of detail so that I get a coherent picture of the world - but it comes at a cost. I was doing an oral exam some years ago and the examiner commented on how I closed my eyes every time I answered a question.
I don't know if it will help with the ear ringing, but I found a lot of mine is linked to foods. Yes, foods... If I avoid the foods then no ear ringing. It means eating super clean. I mainly eat grass fed meat. Beef + lamb. A little organic fruit like prunes. But many "healthy fruit + veggies" cause the ear ringing. Bananas certainly do! Of course it will be different foods for different people. Most foods I avoid.
IT MAKES SENSE NOW.... I'm an Ordertaker at work.... gosh how hard it is to understand people... I feel either like I'm just deaf in the ears or I need a translator for my native language sometimes...
Orion, firstly thank you for your humour. I love that you just let it come out and even play with it. Very appreciated because not many people can actually make me laugh out loud so cuddos and thank you.
Second, these examples are basically my lived experiences as well. I am not diagnosed but have been researching Autism for quite a few years and it sure explains everything for me. Having channel's like yours to glean tips, tricks and info from is in itself a source guidence and relief at better understanding myself and feeling less alone/odd.
Thanks a whole bunch Man! ✋ ❤
mainly the fatigue, because i had to mask it all for so long. since my burnout i've slowly learned to allow my kind of assertive side to take the reins too though, in order to prevent my environment from overwhelming me. it's difficult not to hurt other people's feelings that way though. healing really is messy stuff.
This is me.. at work struggling to get my job done.
Yes, sooo relatable, almost everything! To pick out just one aspect: my learning ability. It nose-dived when I went from school to Uni. At first I couldn't explain it at all, starting to think I'd gone stupid overnight. But I now know one key factor: how things were presented. At school you learned stuff at many different (sensory) levels and you could ask questions at anytime. At uni I was then bombarded by 45 or 90 min lectures of some really complex, unfamiliar material at high speed and mostly in large, echo-ey auditoriums with sub-optimal sound systems. My head literally started to hurt about 15-20 minutes into every lecture, a feeling like my brain was about to explode. It felt impossible to ever grasp what was being presented and the horrid experience compounded my learning problem further.
Very similar experience for me, but rather than a headache I'd literally shut down and pass out. Completely sabotaged any attempt I'd make to pay attention and learn during lectures. Ended up getting booted after failing the second year twice. :(
My experience is that Auditory Processing Disorder is something that can happen later in life, too. I used to be very pleased with myself because I could easily understand accents (the exception was a strong Aussie accent!), but sometimes had issues with people who talked too fast. My hearing (physically) started to deteriorate in my 50's, and my suddenly realizing that I could no longer understand the dialogue on TV programs that I formerly had no problem understanding, lead me to having my hearing tested and my learning that I have a frequency loss problem. I now have hearing aids that help a great deal, but apparently having gone over a decade with uncorrected deteriorating hearing messed up my auditory processing and I now have the auditory processing disorder you discuss here. I now have trouble with conversations and absolutely hate telephone calls unless I'm listening to someone I've known for so many years that I can interpolate what they're saying. This explains why when I studied languages (four!) I had no problem with written language but understanding spoken language was difficult.
The primary reason I get in trouble, and why my "bad" was never my fault...
I wish my parents were alive to hear this video.
Wow, so much of this rings true for me. My funniest mishearing incident was probably an ad I saw for AARP (American Association of Retired Persons - I'm Canadian, but we get US networks on TV, of course). The announcer dude said, "Come for a workshop!" and I heard "Kung fu workshop!", and I was like, "Seniors doing kung fu? Sounds cool!"
11:10 totally relatable 😂 I never catch public announcements😅
I had always assumed that was an everybody problem.
@@resourcedragon I thought so too until one time I was at the supermarket with my friend and an announcement came up it hurt my ears I covered them, then asked my friend do you know what it said?! She told me what it was and then I knew it's a me and my ears problem 😅
I think this is why I can’t spell. Nothing upset me so much as “it’s spelt the way it sounds”. That phrase almost made me cry.
I also am the champion of creating mondegreens (misheard lyrics or poetry), for example, Tumbling Dice… I hear “the Jews in the crowd” instead of “the jewels in the crown”. Almost everyone does that once in a while. I do it all the time.
Looooooool can relate. I grew up in France, had to learn a whole new language. In secondary school I was pretty much fluent but struggled massively in literature (French). When I had trouble spelling a word the teacher would always tell me "it's spelt how it sounds". Like lady this is not my first language?! Had no idea at the time that I was ADHD because all my difficulties at school were put down to me being British.
@@0MochiBear0How frustrating!
I got perfect marks in French (I’m in Canada) until grade 10 when the teacher insisted that there be virtually no English spoken. I could read it. I could write it. I could even speak it. But I could not hear it.
I won an academic achievement award that year. I ran into the teacher after the award was given and she was really pissed off. Said I shouldn’t have got it because I went from a B to just passing in French. She thought I was lazy. I was too intimidated to try to explain it to her. Not that I knew what it was.
No doubt she’s long dead but my God how I would like to talk to her now! 😂
@@gaylynyoung6387 Same, I would very much like to explain my difficulties to past teachers.
I think some of them like being a bully though.
Well done for such an achievement!
So much of this!!!! Thank you!!!
To help me focus in meetings, I stream bi-aural beats from RUclips. They help lower my anxiety which helps in work meetings. I turn them down in my headphones not to become a distraction. When I have it leveled right, I can participate without falling behind and have far fewer miscommunications.
OMG. I knew I have this, but hearing you confirm so many of them is mind blowing. Thank you.
During my undergrad years, I went to lectures simply to note down what I need to learn, and then learn them by myself in the library. This was what I had to do to cope with ADP.
Hi Orion, I'm so glad you made a video about this. I'm autistic and I also have APD. I've observed that one of the difficulties I have because of APD can cause frustration in other people, because they think I'm not listening to them when they speak to me- I tell them that I hear them, that I understand their words, and that I'm listening, but what they're saying to me sometimes isn''t registering in my brain. I also have the volume problem you mentioned- many people tell me that I'm shouting when I talk to them, but to me it doesn't sound like it. Over time, I have learned to avoid the loud talking by consciously talking more softly than I normally would, especially when I'm excited about something, so that I'm not accused of shouting.
I also have only 2 default voices : too soft or too loud. My most natural voice is the too loud voice I think. I use too soft at my job because it's quiet so people can hear me, and the too loud at home. Between those places, I try to use the right one but it's difficult to control which one will go out or how it will be heard…
@@Crouteceleste , that's how it is for me too. I'm also sometimes told that I speak too softly, in addition to speaking too loudly. I find my volume control hard to modulate as well. Thanks for your input!
@@KHawk9799 I can't count the number of times I've experienced the following:
Me: speaks in my normal tone of voice
Other person: What? Speak up, I can't hear you
Me: repeats louder
Them: What?!
Me: repeats louder still
Them: Quit mumbling, I still can't hear you
Me: repeats as loud as I can
Them: Well you don't have to yell!
@@sparrowelf, wow, that sounds a lot what i experience. I can't seem to get my volume right. So sorry you experience this too, but I'm glad to know I'm not the only one going through this.
One of my special interests is foreign languages, and even though in general I have always been very good in language learning, I have always struggled with listening, and no matter how much I practiced, my listening skills never really seemed to get better. My autism diagnosis + learning about Auditory Processing Disorder helped me accept my struggles and has probably saved me from giving up on my hobby. I'm slowly getting better at asking my teachers to write down new vocabulary to help me with my sound discrimination difficulties.
From my school time I remember that at higher language learning levels listening exercises were made significantly harder by making them "more realistic" by e.g. adding background noise to two people talking. I failed at literally all of them, because how am I supposed to understand a foreign language in a situation where I wouldn't even understand my native language? If in real life I was asked to listen to two people talking in a noisy environment and afterwards answer questions on what they said, I'd either ask to hand me a transcript or something similar of the conversation, or to leave the environment and go to somewhere quiet. I hate being graded for lacking skills that I'm physically unable to acquire.
Me too!!
I love to use subtitles on tv show, RUclips videos and movies even though I have perfect hearing. I'm even using them on this video lol.
Omg same 🤣
Yes. If I’m not able to have subtitles on a video, there is a high chance I just won’t watch it. 🤷🏻♀️
This is why I prefer shows in other languages! It’s so much easier to follow the captions than try to listen to words in my own language 😅
Hell yeah! The Scandi Noirists! Very little over exciting or even incongruous background music. Exquisitely subtle visuals. And the perfect excuse for subtitles.
There's a song that I found that emulates what APD is like when it's acting up.
"Prisencolinensinainciusol"
It's awesome to show people without it, what it feels like to have APD.
It's funny how many often will mention the humorous faulty sound translation.
I've also noticed that many of us rely on looking at lips to help correct the sound processing. Essentially light lip reading at a subconscious level.
Yes! I've always loved that song, but it never occurred to me to use it to illustrate APD to other people. I'll have to remember that for the future. And yes on the lip reading at a subconscious level!
Usually, when my brain decides to turn off the auditory processing, I need to ask the person to repeat what they had just said once. Sometimes twice. On very rare occasions, I need to ask them to repeat what they said three times and, by then, I am no longer sure if I can't understand what they're saying due to APD or just sheer anxiety. I had one experience having to ask my boss to repeat what he was saying four or five times before my brain finally decided to get back online and actually make sense of the words. Having to say things like "I SWEAR I am NOT making fun of you, can you please please please repeat that one more time?" is a moment I would love to never have to repeat.
one year before i got my asd diagnosis i was diagnosed with adhd; during that year between diagnoses, i accidentally found out about apd, and all of the sudden i understood so many problems i've always had... - it was effing mindblowing! there are at least four or five things i have always had problems with, or rather i was wondering about them
1- jazz music - it takes 5-15 seconds of this garbage (pls, no offence to people who like it, it's not against you) to give me truly awful, but really truly, truuuly awful migraine... omg i hate it so much!!!!
2 - whole my life, literally since i can remember, i thought i'm just a "night owl" therefore i cant sleep at night, and i desperately want to sleep between 6-8 a.m. to 4-5 p.m.; it turned out that at night there is no annoying, overwhelming, keeping me constantly burned out - _background noise!_ at night it is so calm and comfortable... it's a huge problem for me :/ at night i can't fall asleep because i feel this weird, deep regret that i'm loosing my precious time, when i could do so, so much
3 - police/ambulance/firetruck alarm - i can never tell where the effff is it coming from!! front? behind? left/right? i always panic a little when i hear it, but after many years of driving, i have other strategies, to notice, where alarm comes from; also i have my best, fastest reflexes while driving a car (i have no idea why xp) so i pose no danger in such situation, it is just me - confused asf - every time
4 - when the background noise is too loud, like in a club or some crowded place, or earlier in school - when i was talking with somebody, i always could perfectly hear their voice, but it was impossible for me to understand the words, and let me tell you - it is effing weird every-fukcin-time;
i also have some funny tricks with my hearing ;)
sth similar you have, wan you way "what?" kinda unnecessarily, because of this weird delay in the brain; i have something that helps me - when i drift away with my mind, somewhere far, far away, and suddenly someone asks me about something they've just said, its like my mind records the last few seconds of sound, and i can like replay them in my head to find out what was said, and all my teachers (and other people, but mostly teachers) got really stunned or frustrated when, even though they noticed i'm clearly not listening, i practically could always answer their question
and even though my auditory processing is effed up i learn quickest, easiest and fastest through hearing information; there is something weird happening in my brain, when i hear words and phrases, i immediately see them as a pictures or micro-videos with/inside my mind (i must avoid the news because of it, it doesn't matter, they're not showing some gruesome pictures of horrible things, they are describing it and those descriptions haunt me later for many days)
oh, and i also cannot remember names of people; i think i've never in my life remembered immediately someone's name
ps. sorry for all the grammar and other mistakes; english isn't my native language and i have dyslexia and i might probably finf some more excuses, but it's almost 5 a.m. so it's soon the sleepy time xD
also i do recognize different accents, and very often it takes me a minute or five to "adjust" my brain to different accent, and the close captions must be always on, but i almost never look at them xp
and sorry for no capital letters - i was just too lazy atm to press shift ;)
ps2. i fukin love being autistic, even with all those weird "problems" and challenges, which contributed to my life being miserable, just because the normies couldn't understand me - i think our different brains are amazingly awesome, super extraordinary and infinitely precious and i would never, never, ever want to be not autistic+adhd
@DerangedMerger - Honestly, your English and grammar seems better to me than a LOT of native English speakers, especially some of my fellow Americans!
@@sparrowelf awww ;3 thank you! 🥰 the impostor syndrom makes everything i do, look like sh*it for me 😅 :P
I love the quiet late at night too.
This is so me. Thank you for making me feel valued and valid 🎉
CC and noise canceling devices help a lot! Thank you, Orion.
This is so validating. I have a lot of virtual meetings with my job and they are exhausting to actually pay attention too. Now I know why! Also I realized how much I rely on lip reading when covid hit. It was infinitely harder to understand people wearing masks.
Okay, I definitly have this.
Thanks, Orion to again explain me myself❤
that's me! what? yeah, what, no shut up
I was just telling my counselor about how when I last lived in san diego, I was across the bay from seaworld, and their fireworks echoed across and sounded like bombs and always had me on edge because I'd forget about them each night until they started. finally got my noise cancellers so I'm set for tonight (4th july in ussa)
after my last exam, my ear doc said I had the best hearing he'd seen all week lol
oh man, so many relatable things here. my favorite is when I finally use subs or look at song lyrics, and realize I've never known what a certain word was, or misinterpreted it forever
ok young Bain! hahaha man you had me rolling throughout this one. cheers, Big O!
I was diagnosed with this in my 20's, long before anyone noticed I was autistic. Prior to that diagnosis, I used to call it "What? Oh" syndrome. I was lucky in that the audiology department where I went to get my hearing checked actually was one of the few places and audiologists that could test for Auditory Processing Disorder. Thanks for talking about this subject.
Accents are hard for me sometimes, but not usually because of being hard to understand - some accents just make me very fatigued to listen to for a long time. Others not at all, and it also depends on the speaker. The Australian accent, fortunately, is one of the ones that's easy for me to listen to! I also get tired VERY quickly from listening to podcasts - having video to follow along with is pretty important for me, though I *can* do audio-only if I need to, or occasionally. Even with video, I find I often have to rewind a bit very often to process what's just been said, so a video this length (just under 30 minutes) can take me more like 40-45 minutes on average to watch. As for pain from certain types of sounds, the high-pitched squeal of metal clothes hangers on a metal pole (like at a clothing store at the clothes rack) has caused me so much pain and distress that I've had to go wait in the car sometimes while my family was shopping. 😅 And one time, for a singing project, the sample song track I was sent to sing along with had all the different voice harmonies and background music included. I almost cried from shame because I had to ask for a track with JUST the sound of a single singer, with no background music, to follow along with because I literally couldn't pick out or understand the tune otherwise (for a song I had memorized!!!). Glad to know this could be auditory processing and not just me being "stupid"❤ And of course, there was the time I got a free hearing test at a local fair when I was a teen, was told I had perfect hearing and that I just needed to "pay attention better" to people speaking to me!
Somethig I've started doing to help me remember names is saying the person's name once they're introduced. Instead of, "Hey, nice to meet you," I'll say, "Hey, Paul. Nice to meet you." It's not completely foolproof but saying the name seems to help me recall it, especially because I'm having to consciously prompt myself to say the person's name.
This made so much sens and explained a lott for me. That you Orion🙂👍
There is a situation where I almost always have issues with hearing : it's when someone I don't know very well talk to me about an unexpected subject. Since I am not prepared to hear certain words from a certain lexical theme, and since I don't know this person well so I don't know much about their preferred talking subjects, I often have to make them repeat several times until my brain makes sense of the sounds they are uttering to me. It can happen with people I know well too, if the subject is very unusual/random. I also use their facial or body movements as hints about what they're saying. On the phone though, it's another issue…
In restaurant and similar environments, I can process conversations from across the room, but find myself completely incapable with those from across the table 😢
Remembering names, listening to audiobooks, learning a foreign language….cannot do it!
Great, much needed video!!!
You named it APD. In US I have had it referred to as CAPD.
Wonderful that you not only discussed APD and autism but ended the video with tips!! ❤
I've never had issue with another language reading and writing, every word one by one.
I do find translation on paper pretty quick case of foreign a is b foreign b is c so I can read fluent and match single spoken word for word quickly.
But cannot speak it back as expected, and certainly cannot hear the whole foreign sentence
That ingested microphone bit !! 😂😂😂 yes, soooo relatable!! 🙏🙏💕
Machiery/electronics sometimes sound like metallic music to me. But if it makes like a repetitive or irregular pattern it ruins my day. Think a closed door trembling in its latch when theres a strong draft. Also does anyone else almost selectively muffle the outside world and escape into your thoughts and then if it’s quiet and you’re hyper fixated on something a loud sneeze can make you jump out of your skin!?
I enjoy your videos they are always good, even the unedited ones✌️
I find, that when I’m in a noisy environment, and I’m in a conversation, I start to sounds out, or speak things I’m hearing instead of what I’m ment to be saying.
I went for a routine hearing test, they did a test at the end and I failed miserably. It was a test to see how I hear in a crowded room. This was done at specsavers. Well I got my diagnosis of APD
I have two sons with autism and one has adhd. I definitely think as a female, I have autism but I have hidden it well. I was told as a child that a teacher believed I needed more testing, but once my mum heard that. She pulled me from that school and never investigated it ever again.
I did everything to avoid work at school not knowing what was wrong with me. My children, have the best support and care and are thriving in school and doing well
I keep having my mind blown lately. Only very recently (I'm 53) did I discover that I'm most likely on the autism spectrum. It was never on my radar; frankly, I was pretty ignorant about autism.
The more I read/watch videos about autism, the more things resonate with me. This is a huge one! I've been dealing with auditory processing issues for as long as I can remember. Can't deal with group conversations, absolutely despise talking on the telephone (and will put off making phone calls as long as possible, and sometimes so long that it's to my detriment), constantly mishearing people, and yes - song lyrics! (I love that so many music apps have a feature to display song lyrics now; I'm only now learning some of the lyrics I couldn't make out in songs that I've loved for 30-40 years!
I kept thinking there had to be something wrong with my hearing. I had my hearing checked at my ENT's office a little over a year ago and they said, nope, your hearing is perfect. Then WTF is wrong with me?
It's really encouraging learning more about why I have many of the struggles I've had, that there's not something fundamentally _wrong_ with me, my brain just functions differently from "neurotypicals".
24:08 - This is probably one ofmy biggest current fights with the world... LET ME LIVE IN A QUIET APARTMENT.
I need to live in a quiet apartment. The noises from outside are driving me crazy! (no joke, I been hospitalized for a mega shutdown due to dog barks)
I saw the title of your video and clicked on it because of curiosity. Heard so often people using this name APD and I wanna learn more about it. I feel like crying after watching this. You describe exactly one of my biggest struggles since I have been a kid. Always misheard people a lot what had a lot of consequences like hearing check ups at the doctor (I was not deaf and still I am not) so people assumed I am kinda dumb that I always misheard??? I was even sent to a special ed school the first years till the adults (parent, teachers, childcare worker) figured out that I am not "that dumb" (I am sorry for describing this like that it is NOT my personal opinion more like an society thing of the 90ies in a post-soviet union society) and was sent to a regular school. A lot of the people in my environment like other kids in school thought I am kinda dumb because ofc I still had the same struggles like alway. Even as an adult now I struggle a lot with all the topics u mentioned in your video. Especially I hate places with a lot of surrounding noises, it stress me out and I cannot follow conversation directed to me well. Sorry for my English (funny enough I am ok with reading but hearing is hard because of reasons you also described so well! That is why I still sometimes need subtitles even with an actually not so bad education). Struggles to understand names properly, struggles with lyrics, struggles with understanding announcements through speakers... I cannot say what is NOT fitting in my life experiences. But I wanna say thanks for your educational work it helps me lot to understand more where doctors, (childcare) educators and others went wrong that I even felt that "everything is my own fault", yeah even feeling the discomfort with some sounds and noises. Oh and ofc I am still not diagnosed because "I am not autistic enough for the diagnosis but too quirky to be normal" (Also not my own words and opinions) and so I need to learn all by myself how to live a normal life with any official support only relying on my own research and my friends. Thanks again for your great work I feel finally understood by someone...
21:00 exactly this. Conversations in noisy environments, especially if there are many similar sounds, like people talking at the same time. It all blends together and is hard to separate. I can hear them speak, but not really make sense of it.
6:11 "...sometimes the autistic brain can struggle if we can't VISUALLY SEE the person talking to us." One of the many major issues I've had (and still have) is with people wearing masks (aside from my childhood trauma regarding masks). The last few years have been an absolute nightmare for me, just like Caroline Binder describes in her comment at 20:54. Phone calls have ALWAYS been something I've avoided for that same reason. So glad to know it's because of my autism!
I frequently mis-hear what my husband says -- most of the time it's extremely comical, what I thought he said. I'm constantly saying, "What?" because I really didn't hear what he said, so the poor guy has to repeat just about everything he says. He has a beautiful speaking voice but perhaps the pitch or tone is one that my ears find difficult to hear or interpret, as I don't seem to have the same issue with other people (unless their mouth is covered in fabric...). My husband's always telling me I have "amazing hearing" because I'll hear the tiniest things. The downside is that I also have misophonia -- I cannot STAND "whistling S's," smacking P's, vocal fry, upspeak, etc. Those things are literally painful for me. Going one step further, I also cannot stand to be out in public where stores are *blaring* songs -- they seem to not have access to a volume control -- and then those songs, usually 80's crap, get stuck in my head FOR WEEKS AND SOMETIMES MONTHS, 24/7. It's an absolute nightmare for me. Sometimes all it takes is a few notes of a song for it to get stuck in my head. I have a degree in classical music, so I naturally am keenly sensitive to music and sound, but the "earworms" are the absolute worst. And when I say 24/7, I mean it: I've woken in the middle of the night to find some song playing in my head, which may not even be the song that was playing on repeat when I went to bed. It's beyond maddening.
13:35 Oh was NEVER funny to me. I remember one of the ways I taught myself to speak is to sing songs. A whole cartoon theme song I could sing except for one line. My brother happened to walk in the room on the one line I got wrong, He yelled at me "If you gonnna sing it, sing it RIGHT". And I stopped myself from singing my favorite cartoon theme song from Tiny Toon Adventures. I was so young, Thinking on this old story I feel like I am about to cry.
24:26
In high school, I always sat in front of the class. Easy to listen to the teacher. And the people in the back who do whatever they feel like doing are farther away and not so distracting.
I’ve been tested. Exceptional hearing!!! Yet I must say I’m hard of hearing so I can get a repeat. Names! Ugg. Faces I remember names not so much. Usually I recall the first letter of the name. It’s all all about the processing 😢. Yes, ASL helps. Although deaf can have dismissive attitude towards hearing people. I found that I needed to ask my deaf friends to slow down on their signing I even need time to process that !!! I seriously do not fit anywhere. I’ve stopped trying. I actually do fit when I’m in nature so that’s my friend I guess 😊 I’m pretty good at lip reading since childhood. It all takes so much energy. I just don’t have the energy anymore. 60 yrs and I’m exhausted
*** I said deaf friends. This was decades ago. I have no human friends today . 😅
@@FiguringItOut7yes! I can remember the first letter but the actual name? No.
1) I came to the conclusion that I'm autistic a few months ago at age 50 after 18 months of accelerating research & introspection
2) I was also diagnosed with hearing loss in kindergarten; a few years ago I had my hearing tested for the first time in a few decades and it's a significant enough loss now that I should be wearing hearing aids (I'm on Disability and can never afford them).
3) I *also* think I may have APD, but the things that make me think that, did not exist for me when I was a kid? I have an incredibly vivid memory of being at my family's for dinner (mom & brother) with my then boyfriend, and after supper we were sitting in the living room - as normal - chatting animatedly about who knows what number of topics - as normal - with the TV on in the background - as normal... and I lost the ability to stay "on top" of the conversation. I could make out a few words, and then it was all a jumble in my head. I'd try to shake it off and re-focus, and I'd make out a few more words, and then it would disintegrate into a jumble again. It was so striking and different that I even commented on it; I told them what was happening and everyone stopped talking and looked at me in confusion because the TV wasn't even as loud as it sometimes is in these situations. I think the responses were something like "well that's weird.... " and then the conversation went on (we didn't even turn the TV off!) with me basically trying to look like I was following but just tuning out.
It's only happened more and more, and in a more and more unworkable way, in the decades since that. And yeah, phone calls (or zoom, except that at least I can lip read there) are the literal worst.
Any time I've brought it up with doctors or psychiatrists, they dismiss it because there's documented hearing loss.
So my questions for the comments section are:
- can you develop APD all of a sudden one day without there being some triggering event (by which I mean, like, a stroke, or a blow to the head, or idk, a viral infection or something)?
or
- is it possible that I've had APD all my life but it's pretty minor and I was always able to just concentrate my way through it? Is "minor APD" a thing? But then as my hearing deteriorated little by little as I aged (even just, like, aging as in growing up), all of a sudden I got to a level of hearing loss where it started causing problems I couldn't concentrate-my-way-through, with the APD?
16:00 with Laurel's question - oh wow, yeah. Even in that very first experience I described above, I've ALWAYS described it as "it's like someone's jamming the signal in my brain" or "it's like there's a screen of TV static in my brain that's hiding what I'm trying to listen to, except the static isn't actually making any sound" (descriptions I used lonnnng before I ever heard about APD, which I only learned about in the past 6 months) but "tuning a radio station, but some stations come in clearly and others can't ever be made satisfyingly clear" is another really good analogy to me. I guess maybe because it meshes so well with my TV static analogy.
I've started emailing places that normally require you to ring them (e.g. government departments) and telling them about my autism and that I struggle on the phone. It's a good way to be able to avoid the issues with phones.
I almost skipped over this video. As it went on I found that some of these might explain some things I regularly experience. Thank you.
I feel better after watching your videos. Especially this one. Hits home on many levels.
How my APD manifests (was born with ASD..) - let me know, if this sounds familiar:
- Others speaking means I hear "blablabla" and after their sentence I need to invest energy in my brain to guess the words and guess what the sentence probably was. It took a long time to get it to over 95% matching, but takes huge amounts of energy and drains me quickly. And when drained, my accuracy drops completely.
- I often don't understand people on the phone, even worse, phone conferences with some tiny speaker on the table. Had embarrasing situations when I had to lead the conference occationally, because I just couldn't understand, no matter how much I tried to..
- Used headphones and turned up the volume really loud, that way 1:1 conversations were almost perfect ! This actually saved energy, because I didn't need to guess as much. Still costs a ton more energy than NT people spend on it..
- Sometimes answering people and they get silent or withdraw - later you find out, you misunderstood and answered to something completely different and they thought, you were nuts or pychologically challenged or stupid to answer the wrong way - when really you just misinterpreted 2 or 3 words..
- When on low energy, I can't focus in meetings on what people say. It was often very important and I needed to listen, but every few seconds I lost connection and drifted, I just had no energy to stay "tuned" to what was said. (only happens on low energy). Huge impact on job and also in private !
- you sit with multiple people, all of a sudden, 2 people start a different conversation, while the person you are talking to is waiting for you to continue, but you can't, because next to you those other 2 are talking. You need to wait because you can neither speak nor focus and listen while next to you, there's another conversation..
- you enjoy a movie with a friend, the friend starts a conversation all of sudden. I tell him, TV or Talk, not both. This is actually annoying. Why watch a movie but then just talk and not understand anything at all.. !?
- not sure if this is APD or just ASD, but putting in tight ear plugs to block out ALL sounds, is like a vacation. I feel so wonderful and relaxed when all noises are gone, at least for a few hours per day (if I can afford to). Anybody else ?
Is this typical, or are there many more variations ?
I came across a new brain retraining technique that eye doctors are doing. They use lenses with bent light and a bell to rewire the ears and eyes together. They said a lot of people with autism and people who have had concussions ears and eyes aren't wired properly in the brain. Once they rewire them properly, it makes some of these issues better for people with Autism. It's a really new thing.
It sounds a bit like a development of Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (EMDR). I've seen some things that say that there are studies that question the effectiveness of EMDR, so I'd be cautious about dropping a lot of dough on having something like that. It might not actually harm you (just your bank balance) but discrepancies between what's promised and what you actually get can be harmful.
I don't think it's EDMR. It's just rewiring the eyes and ear back together properly in the brain. I can't find anyone anywhere near where I live to do it at the moment anyways. I'm always careful. They had patients who actually went thru the rewiring and they said it was life changing. Like I said tho it's new. So I usually wait awhile until more people have done it so I know if it's safe. I've been in a brain retraining program for some chronic illnesses for over a year and I'm 90% recovered after being very sick for 21 years. Brain retraining is a powerful tool.
Remembering names, listening to audiobooks, learning a foreign language….cannot do it!
Great, much needed video!!!
You named it APD. In US I have had it referred to as CAPD.
Ha! This one's an absolute "Hell-yes", for me. I'm a "suspected since childhood, but only recently diagnosed" (age; late thirties) Au'DHD-er (ASD+ADHD), and the number of times, growing up, that anyone speaking to me, directly, in an even mildly distracting setting (could've been, just another family-member, walking by, outside the room), ended up angry/frustrated with me, cause I'd either keep saying "Umm...sorry, what?" - to their face -, or not say it and carry on doing exactly whatever I was, before our interaction, while trying to "piece together"/guess, what exactly, they'd just said,...is uncountable, all too frequent. So I ALSO got my hearing checked as a child, and when told it was fine, all subsequent incidents passed to being automatically assumed/branded as me being deliberately obnoxious... Got me into LOTS of undue trouble; at home, school, out'n'about,...etc.!...
Case in point being, that now, I'm watching this near an open window, and everytime a car or person goes by, what you're saying gets momentarily drowned out/replaced, with the sound of a car or footsteps & chatter. I can see your face keeps moving, when my ears hear "...and so, if you - Gniaoum! - that means you're - Klippy-klappy, klop-klop, yadda-yaddah -, which is why, when it happens, we - Sh-sh, sh-sh, wahen! - and this never fails to surprise people."...
It's awful! I equally can't talk with anyone, while washing dishes, for example; what with the water cutting on and off, and the sound of the dishes moving, and the frothy sound of soap-foam on the sponge, and every feeble little "tink" or "klink"-sound, when placing the dishes on the drying-rack...🙉🤦🏻♀️
Another thing that happens for me, is that, when conversing with someone (although, it really happens with everything), I need to be fully attentive, "locked-in" on the interaction, as I practically can't process any more than a single activity/event/thing, at a time; To remain with the example of dish-washing with/near another person: I'd actually take twice as long, and end up washing up, half as well as I normally do alone, AND end up quite frustrated/nerve-wrecked/overwhelmed, from trying to conduct two, simultaneous tasks, which demand two separate modes of processing (- if that makes sense).
Edit: This reminds me of a coordination-game, we'd play sometimes, as kids; wherein you tap on the top of your head with one hand, while running the other hand across your belly, in circles - at the same time. The goal was to see, who could do this, for longest (I think). I was absolutely *terrible* at it! 😂😅
Anyways; thank you for shedding light on this particular trait, and how it can affect our lives, in your usual, very personable, warm, humorous, no-bs, yet uplifting and well-articulated way. Much appreciated!
(And sorry for the lengthy read; I do tend to be quite "wordy".)😬🙊😅🤓
Be careful with the voice-to-text apps. Sometimes they “autocorrect” the way we do. 🤦🏾♀️ 😂
It can be helpful for others to SEE 👀 what they’re actually saying and/or how they don’t actually pronounce and/or annunciate the way they think they do though.
18:28 I was waiting for this one, this is something I know about myself, still learning about autism and how it does affect / has affected me, is there a connection here? Yes, there is. Thank you for sharing. The more I watch this channel, the more I feel I've found my 'in' group.
APD has been the biggest struggle my entire life, even though I was only diagnosed 2 years ago at age 60. My hyperacuity has had me wearing earplugs everywhere for most of my life, and I have such a horrible time isolating sounds that we can just forget having a conversation in a restaurant. Or a car with the radio on. Or over a cell phone. I retain almost nothing that comes in my ears.
Definitely relate to a lot and some I see in my fiance, we are pretty sure he’s audhd. I needed the giggles 😆thanks Orion. Liked the “stars of Orion” comment
The more I learn, the more I wonder.... I've always been told I don't pay attention. Nearly everything you described here is spot on to what I have experienced for my whole life, I'm 61. I have 2 autistic grandsons and learning about it has made me wonder if this has been the reason for so many things I've experienced in my life.
I had an eye injury and for more than a decade i could not see the center of my field of view so i had to scan words back and forth to grasp them. My brain substituted some pretty funny guesses and for a second the guess would actually appear in my brain until the correction updated it. It reminds me of how hearing words is for me.
This is the best video on this problem I have ever seen thanks so much.
This was so helpful. I had no idea there’s a name for what I have been experiencing… and yes, I just thought I was broken… I now accept myself and will advocate for myself better now
What a useful video and examples Orion.
Very useful to share with others to help explain.
As a teacher with ASD, I struggle so much to remember instructions and then meet those deadlines.
Sometimes someone will mention something and I think I have heard it for the first time but they assure my they have had the conversation before!
It’s the Bain of my life!!
For me it’s definitely more noticeable when I’m trying to look someone in the eye. I’ve described it as when the adults talk in a Peanuts cartoon where they portray adult voices as just a trombone with one of those cup things over the horn making “womp womp womp” sounds instead of words. When I’m struggling to hear what someone says because I’m looking them in the eyes, I can still hear the noises coming out of their faces, but it’s like there are no words happening. When I was younger, I could often just “rewind” in my head and re-listen to what they said and then listen to the words and “hear” what they said after replaying the noises in my head, but as I’ve gotten older, I seem to have mostly lost that ability. It’s only recently after rediscovering autistic content on RUclips that I’ve realized that the loss of that ability has also correlated to how difficult I find navigating everything else in the neurotypical world. I have a suspicion that it’s less that I’ve lost that ability rather than that I’ve lost the capacity to be able to use it at all. There have become so many other “important” demands out of my life that I can’t even begin to have those resources available to use anymore when I need them. They’re just “gone”, and when I try to bring them back and use them, I very quickly reach a conclusion that in order to be able to successfully use that skill again, I would have to give up a whole lot of other things that it’s become necessary to depend on for other, more important or crucial things.
Love this, thank you! To add on to the suggestion of noise-cancelling headphones - I'm a big fan of electronic ear muffs. Being earmuffs (PPE) they will reduce all noise and are very comfortable, but each ear cup has a microphone on the outside and speaker inside, which allows the wearer to "turn up" the volume of their surroundings if they feel the need to. Most are tuned specifically for human vocal frequencies too, which can make listening to conversation much more comfortable. They also only amplify sounds that are under ~80-85 db and turn off for anything uncomfortably loud, and the speakers are almost perfectly placed for people with auditory processing issues.
I own 5 different pairs, and the model I like best is the 3M Peltor Sport Tac. They are mostly meant for shooting and hunting, but, as they are PPE, they will be a tax deduction for many occupations. They are also really rugged and tough, and will survive the most clumsy of users. Turn the electronics off if you are feeling overstimulated and need the world to be a bit quieter, or turn them up if you want to take in the natural sounds around you (you will be able to hear things you never knew were there).
When I'm in a group and out and about, I hear all the noises at the same time.
There is no picking one, unless it's louder than everything else.
If I'm cooking, and I'm playing music, and I have the fan above the stove on, and my partner tries to talk to me, I have to shut everything else off in order to hear him. Too many sounds, can't hear.
I watch absolutely everything with subs, I retain things far better when i read information! Its like reverse dyslexia! I always hated school lessons because the information is just going in one ear and out the other, i need visual or written information
I grew up in an environment that was always either so quiet you could hear a pin drop or insanely loud to the point that difficulty hearing was expected. So while I had my suspicions very early on, my hearing issues were easy to brush off.
When I moved into a new environment and got a job at a busy coffee shop, I thought I was going deaf!
Thankfully, I improved my auditory processing a lot during my time there, but I still struggle to get some people to accomodate my auditory processing needs and cannot go into extra hard-to-hear environments like trains and airports without an aide of some sort to translate announcements for me.
As a late in life, self~diagnosed AuDHD...I realize nOw ...wHY I have always wished ... PEOPLE came with 'subtitles'. 😂❤
This is a problem that I've suffered for years before my diagnosis. Split into groups for discussion, social gatherings, work instruction ...
Thank you for clearing up this component of Autism that wears me down, which is why phone calls are a problem but texts/emails are preferable.
You mean it's not "Lucy in the sky with colitis"? (TV Show, The Nanny)
Bane!😂😀 Love it!😂😀
Another great video! Thank you!
Take care, Orion! Thanks for the mention, it made me feel helpful.😀
Thank you for this video! So many of the situations discussed resonated with me. I appreciate knowing it's not just me. I almost started crying at one point because I've thought this was just me all this time.
As someone who learning hes autistic i do have issues with speech i also have issues with hearing in my right ear im deaf in my left ear so sometimes i have to ask again and again about the same words i always thought that was because of how i was but now i know that its because im autistic i will also get artistic and autistic mix up because they sounds the same
Thank you. This information is very helpful.