Audio Processing Disorder?

Post Reply New Topic

sorry ignore post came out all weird

Last edited by Tempy on 16 Nov 2007, 6:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

wow...i had no idea that there was a real reason for why i became a lip reader...
i had my hearing tested because i thought i had a problem but they told me my hearing was perfect. NOW i understand why....and glad to know it.

I was taken for a hearing test as a child, on the recommendation of one of my teachers. The results claimed my hearing to be fine, but as I got older I became more and more convinced that I had hearing trouble.
The eureka moment came at about the age of 20, when a friend was talking to me whilst we were walking alongside a road heavy with traffic. After several rounds of "Pardon" I eventually asked, "Do you actually think I can hear you over this traffic?"

I don't need to have to see lips to discern speech, and I don't mis-hear one word for another often enough for it to be an inconvenience. My main trouble is that white and pink noise drown out all other sounds.
There are samples of both on their Wikipedia pages (Pink, White) Listening to these, the sound seems very loud and localised within my auditory canal.
The sample on the page for Brownian noise (here) seems the same sound as the other two (in terms of timbre) yet much quieter and localised at my computer's speakers, where it actually originates.

I had no idea what the name for this disorder was, and had concluded that it must be quite rare, since I'd never heard anyone else complain of anything similar. This thread has both surprised and enlightened me.

If I'm talking to one person in an otherwise quiet room, no problem!

But if any aspect of that changes, it gets difficult for me. One of the things that bugs me the most is having voices on the radio while I'm trying to talk to somebody in a car. That's downright impossible.

Now the trick is: What can we do about it???

I'm not sure...but where we live there is no central air, so you hear all noises from outside while watching TV...I am constantly telling my husband to raise the sound because I can't hear it...he says he can hear it fine...but at the same time, now that you say it, when I am watching TV I have to look otherwise, I can't really understand what's going on...Not sure what this is...

This is exactly what happens to me, except add absolute pitch in there. And the fact that I literally have a meltdown every time I hear the dreaded "teen buzz" or whatever it's called. >.<

I am bad at dictation. Converting audio to written. Like taking numbers, but through practice at work, it isn't so bad.

I usually watch TV with the subtitles on. Even if it's plenty loud I can't always understand, but I read more than fast enough to keep up with dialogue and not miss the action. Works out perfectly. Now if only I could invent a way to put subtitles in the air above people...

That's what I asked the audiologist who diagnosed me with APD. She said there is no treatment for it, but you can minimize its effects by having important conversations in quiet settings, asking people to write things down for you, reading lips, using subtitles, etc.--just like a person with a non-neurological hearing impairment.

I get annoyed when people tell me to get a hearing aid because I'm always asking them to repeat themselves. I don't like to explain APD to people--I've never met anyone irl who could understand it.

I've always had problem in public places hearing conversation. I feel like i can never go anywhere anymore because of it. Going to a bar??? Forget it!! !

Oh, cripes, chalk me up for this one as well! As a child I could sit in the same room as my mother and the neighbour ladies as they had their coffee and cigarettes, and not take in one single word they spoke, unless maybe they stood directly in front of me and called me by my name.

As an adult, same thing. The "cocktail party deafness" phenomenon where, if the signal-to-noise ratio drops too low, you can't understand a word anybody says. Trouble was, it happened to me everywhere, not just at cocktail parties.

Moving from Canada to Australia. Going out to social occasions with my husband before I had acquired the "ear" for the local speech patterns, and sitting there with an idiot grin on my face because I didn't have a clue what was going on.

Yup, me too!

Here's an interesting LINK on the subject posted by Nan in another thread.

Due to my learning I have APD at this point in my life after all I've been through, I've learned to be up front right away with people when I'm in situations where I'm likely to not hear them right. They don't seem to like dealing with that information, but oh well...I figure at least they've been forewarned that what they say might not be what I hear. I think it's better to head off potentially embarrassing situations before they have a chance to get worse.

It's a little disorienting finding all these acronyms to label facets of what I recognize to be myself. This is my first day here!

Going way back...listening to rock songs, I couldn't make out the lyrics so I'd fill them in with my first impressions of what I heard. Or thought I heard.

The Stones "Have Mercy" became "Happy Birthday."

"Paperback Writer" became "Take a fast right turn."

"Bernadette" became "Burn to Death."

Many more. Anyone here know "Jet Devil in the Freeze Eye?"

dp

The best-known archive of misheard lyrics can be found at:

http://www.kissthisguy.com

Well worth a look, dupertuis, and you may even have a few of your own to contribute!

I can't distinguish between foreground noise and background noise.

It's quite exasperating when someone is across the room from me and is trying to tell me something (if we're in a public place, or at home and the TV is on)

All I hear is "roipfpodh Apollyon dijfwncnoijoijoidjfs!! !!"