Auditory Processing Disorder, etc...

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If my parents ask me a question or start saying long complicated things to me, I often have to interrupt them to repeat what they have just said, breaking it down into smaller chunks of information to make sure I understand completely. I also often forget some of this information. I don't normally interrupt other people in this way though because I want to appear 'normal'.
edit: was anyone here ever criticised by their teacher for not 'listening'

Everything described here fits me to a "T". I also have a horrible time understanding people with even mild foreign accents. This in particular makes me uncomfortable because I'm always worried that I'm going to insult them by continually asking them to repeat themselves. I have this fear that my internal irritation will be visible and I'll be percieved as intolerant or racist. Usually I give up after asking them to repeat themselves once and pretend to understand.

Me too. Add a phone on top of it and I'm completely lost. When I had to call to set up my credit card I was talking to a guy with a strong indian accent and I could barely understand any of what he was saying. My card worked out okay though so I guess me understanding whatever he was telling me wasn't wasn't crucial to the activation. Still was pretty embarrassing a few times when I asked him to repeat himself 2 or 3 times and then just had to pretend that I understood because I still couldn't hear him properly. I just hope there wasn't something that I needed to know about the card that I'll now never know.

But even listening to my family is difficult sometimes. Just last night my mom was telling me about something and I kept having to interrupt her to start over because I just wasn't picking up what she was saying. But then when I ask her to start over she starts saying something similar but not exactly what she was saying which is more confusing. I think maybe my brain is picking up the sounds but just not processing them well so I need to hear the sounds multiple times to process them properly. But if I ask someone to repeat something they'll usually say it using different words probably thinking I didn't understand the way they were explaining it, but then my brain has new sounds to try and process and it's all so confusing.

Sorry if that last bit doesn't make much sense, it barely makes sense to me.

My wife always jokes that I need a 10 second delay in conversation. It never occurred to me that I had a problem but perhaps I do. One thing that has always puzzled me is that I will realise people are standing beside me and acknowledge them only to find that they asked me a question and have been standing there waiting for a response. As I will have no recollection of any question I have to get them to repeat it. The strange thing is they claim that I already acknowledged them when they asked the question which is why they thought I was merely considering my response rather than being unaware of their presense. I often suspected that they were only imagining that they asked the question.

I just about always have to ask people to repeat themselves, especially when I'm not expecting them to say anything, and I'm not paying attention. I have to pay close attention to them to understand what they're saying.

Pretty much I have every issue that has been described by the other posters on this thread.

Back in 1992, I got my hearing tested after I was pretty much ordered to by the parental units because I was driving them nuts with what they called the "huh" disease. I pretty much am known with saying "what" or "huh" after everything anyone asks of me and then will interrupt them when they are repeating with the answer to whatever question they were asking (well at least some of the time, other times I annoy the heck out of them asking to repeat multiple times).

Well, back when I had the test, the results not only came out normal, but the audiologist told me that I scored off the charts on the low and higher ends of the range stating that I could hear sounds that many people could not. I asked why, if I had such fabulous hearing, do I have a problem understanding what people say and why it seems that some things, like the TV, have such a low volume when in fact it's considered extremely loud to everyone else in the room. (I grew up also hearing from people "Will you turn that !@#$%^ TV down).

The audiologist stated that some people have a condition where the brain registers sound just fine, but something breaks down when it tries to determine what the sound it. This was back in 1992, he didn't use the CAPD diagnosis but apparently, at least where I was in the US, they were aware of such a problem existing.

Now, fast forward to 2010, I went from a married man with no kids, to two kids between Nov 2009 and March 2010 (1 adoption in November and a birth in March).

I'm always getting yelled at for the TV being too loud, I get in trouble at work (I work at home) because the sounds from outside my office (the rest of my home) seem to distract me because I cannot focus on the sounds I need to be, all those cute sounds a baby makes drives me nuts like nails on a chalk board because whenever she makes any sound, it's like whatever I'm trying to listen to is muted, my older son (the one we adopted from china) every sound he makes drives me nuts (I think I'm also easily irritated by sounds).

I really have upped the "what" factor and have even gotten to the point of just giving up and telling my wife, "I have no idea what you are saying" and walking away and she's ready to kill me. Heck, sometimes I just get frustrated and guess at what is being said, and my wife has said that if she wasn't so frazzled from being overwhelmed with the kids that she'd find it extremely funny at some of the answers she's gotten to questions because they were not only not even related to the question, but were so off the wall. I just wish I could remember examples which is another of my problems. I have very little auditory memory.

For example, I go to a therapist for my Asperger's as frequently as his schedule allows (sometimes it's once a week other times it's once a month). When I'm done, my wife will ask me what we talked about and I'll be "I have no idea".

Now I've brought up CAPD with him and he insists that there is no treatment for adults with CAPD other than ADHD medications, which I'm taking 70mg of Vyvanse for extreme attention problems, because the running belief by professionals is that CAPD is 100% an attention deficit problem that in some people may only manifest in hearing comprehension and others it's all over the place (like me).

I find it very frustrating when I'm told that basically the only treatment for my auditory issues is to fix my attention issues and I've made no progress in either. In fact, I'd say that my attention deficit issues are getting progressively worse over the past few months which has resulted in frequent temper flares.

It's also increasingly frustrating to search on Google and find that pretty much it's like adults with AS or any condition that is tangential to it (attention issues, CAPD, etc) are treated as a "lost cause". Heck it took me 2 months of calls and e-mails to find a therapist that would even return my correspondence about information on treating adults with AS and the person I have now was one of the names on a huge list provided to me via an online friend who's son is AS, engaged to a NT who works in the field of psychology and has made AS her hobby and lived in ANOTHER STATE. She apparently worked her contacts to get me names in my city.

I was diagnosed with AS in 5 years ago and never did much about it because at the time, my psychiatrist said that there was nothing that could be done since I was no longer a child so I should just "go on with my life" and try to act as normal as possible. So I dismissed the diagnosis (but secretly researched it all the time) until it almost ended my marriage after the kids came into the picture.

But, I'd have to say the CAPD and auditory hypersensitivity are my two worse symptoms in regards to my family harmony. The other highly noticeable AS traits could be dealt with by my wife (except maybe the appearance of insensitivity of her feelings and lack of empathy) if the auditory issues and attention issues were resolved.

nettiespaghetti posted: I recently began researching auditory processing disorder and auditory memory disorder (there are many variations of wording that seem to stem back to the same problem, how your brain receives and processes information that the ear hears). Anyways, I began researching it because I seem to have my own unique "hearing" problems and wondered if they are really so unique. For example, I have to ask people to repeat themselves alot. I can hear by definition, but I seem to be slower to process what they said, but also I have trouble with enunciation. Like I will think they said something totally different from what they said. So in other words, I will either take a bit longer to process it and ultimately will get it, or I'll just hear something else entirely. It's kind of embarrassing for me. I'm not stupid, I just feel like this is making me appear slow. Plus other symptoms I have include hearing a sound and not knowing where it's coming from. Like if someone knocks on the door I'll run to the garage door instead of the front door, or look in the opposite direction. The other day my therapist was talking and when he asked me to repeat back to him what he said I was embarrassed because I could not repeat verbatim what he said. I do this all the time, like sometimes throughout the day I'll remember fragments of things he's said later. I do understand, I score well on IQ tests.
Just wondered if anyone had any knowledge in this area or personal experience. I'd definitely like to learn more.
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Keywords: Central auditory processing disorder (CAPD/old term); Auditory processing disorder (APD/new term). Sound localization can be slightly different than CAPD/APD or, in some cases, it may be a part of CAPD/APD. The most unusual account about auditory processing I recall is from a How To (understand) Hyperactivity book (1981) about ADHD Inattentive by C. Thomas Wild where Wild reported that three FDA approved medicines (Tirend, NoDoz, and Bonine) could slightly, temporarily improve hearing/the processing of sounds and music a little (not a cure). Auditory processing is different than complete deafness; also, some try to define a hearing impairment (as in a range of sounds) as being different than an auditory processing challenge. Many standard hearing tests are often flawed enough that a person can pass them; one has to be tested for central auditory processing disorder separately as many HMOs intentionally exclude central auditory processing disorder from coverage so as to maximize their health care insurance company profits. CAPD/APD are fairly new terms and not everyone has heard about them.

I do the huh/what so I can think about what was said so I can reply. People think i do it to avoid the question, it's actually so I can answer it.

This is so me.

I have also been called Yoda.