Auditory Processing Disorder

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Is anyone here diagnosed with auditory processing disorder? Do you find that your lack of eye contact is for different reasons than ASD lack of eye contact? Like, it doesn't make you uncomfortable, you just need to look away to concentrate on what the other person is saying?

I am not diagnosed with auditory processing disorder (never been tested so make of this what you will), but I have trouble looking someone in the eye while they are talking because then I lose track of what they are saying. I glance at them so they know that I am listening or paying attention, but if I look at them too long, my mind wanders and I sometimes find myself watching their face move or watching their eyes instead of really hearing what they are saying or thinking about how to show that I am listening. In high school and college, my eyes would hurt or burn because it was like I was going to cry. And back then it was also because I didn't know how to do it with people I wasn't very, very familiar with or very comfortable with. I didn't know how to be comfortable with it. And more often than not it was like I got an over-powering load of information from it. I only recently learned that other people can't tell if you aren't looking them in the eye directly, that they can't tell if you are looking at their nose or their eyebrow or a spot on their forehead. I used to have problems even looking at someone's face sometimes, especially if I was nervous or really, really liked them. People have always mentioned how little I look at them, but I always thought they just weren't paying attention to me enough because I thought I was looking at them enough.

The not being able to look at someone much and hear what they are saying is way worse with people that are new or rare with me, people who talk fast or who talk loudly or quietly, in loud, stimulating, new/newish, busy environments, and as the conversation goes on with even a familiar person in a very familiar or quiet place, or if the discussion is not on a particular, factual topic. If it is someone I am one-on-one with and am around a lot I don't think so much about looking at them to let them know I am listening because they know how I am. I also find that I picture what people say to me to follow what they are saying, either in pictures and/or in text. I also mis-hear things, like I misunderstand because I hear a syllable/sound/word that wasn't there or don't hear a syllable/sound/word that was there; sometimes this can change the entire meaning of what was said.

So, for me, it is more to do with sensory stuff nowadays, like an auditory processing issue. I am finding that a lot of my problems are made more obvious and harder to cope with under sensory strain or distraction. And I have difficulty splitting my senses and attention. I can do it sometimes, but not in the "everyday" sense.

I'm new here. I am also interested in the connection of lack of eye contact and APD & ASD.

I was not familiar with APD until I saw your post. I have always had difficulty processing verbal information. As a child I had to go to 2-3 years of speech therapy which focused on getting my phonic sounds closer to normal (back in the 60's). My hearing is fine.

I think I am on the ASD spectrum but maybe just on the fringes. I fit half of the tendencies to the extreme. (Introvert, lack of eye contact, visual thinker, see patterns in things, logical thinker). But I do not fit others or fit others to the extreme. (absorption into just a few topics, verbosity, inability to read body language, lack of empathy).

After looking up APD I find I have most if not all of those tendencies.

I know my brain works visually and that I must translate verbal information back & forth to visual information.

Thanks for the post. I going to dig into APD more.

That's interesting, I do find I am able to better concentrate when having an in-depth discussion with someone when I look away from them. It's kind of like turning my eye input off.

It helps me to read lips when being talked to.

I'm not diagnosed with APD but from what the OP is saying about it and a brief look online at APD information, I would say I have it. In fact, it sounds very much like a sub-set of ASD. It obviously isn't a sub-set of ASD so I'm wondering about my Asperger diagnosis vis a vis APD. I definitely have Aspergers but maybe APD is intermingled therein.

I've been diagnosed with CAPD (Central Auditory Processing Disorder). I can't "hear" (understand) people who speak too loudly, or too fast. I don't have a "problem" with eye contact----BUT, I HAVE noticed that when I look away from them for a few seconds that I can better concentrate on what they're saying. My theory----or, at least PART of a theory I have----is that we ASDers are so extremely detail-oriented, that.....

Like, if I look at somebody's face for a long time, I start noticing the size / number of pores that they have, that their nose might be a little crooked, or off-center, that their eyebrows are comically bushy, or a really nice shape, that they've got that disgusting white stuff in the corner of their mouth----and, on and on and on.

Also, people's eyes can be like "the black hole", or something----like they suck you in, or something......

I read people's lips if we're in a really loud place, and I can't hear them, properly.....

Welcome to Wrong Planet bimini3!!

Hmmm...I have quite a few characteristics of APD, but there's quite a few that I don't have. I'm pretty inconclusive as to whether I have it or not; especially considering that there's a few other disorders that have similar characteristics to APD.

I think that APD can mimic signs of autism — or maybe ASD comes with APD symptoms built-in for some people. For example, the inability to auditorily process subtlety in tones of voice causes the person to speak with a monotone voice — because that is what everyone else's speech sounds like to the APD person — or to interpret speech literally, because they can't "hear" (process) the sarcastic tone of voice. Also, inability to properly hear other people pronounce words can perhaps cause language delay.

Inability to learn from spoken lecture possibly leads to over-reliance on visual learning skills, superior pattern recognition, better performance in symbol-based courses (math and science) and poor performance in language-based courses (English and social science). Kind of like the opposite of NVLD school performance.