Coping with audio processing

[joycem137]

As some of you know, in the midst of learning ASL last year, I got diagnosed as having an auditory processing disorder (CAPD). Short description: Although I never have problems detecting and receiving sounds such as speech, I do have trouble processing/understanding those sounds, especially speech, in certain situations, especially environments with background noise.

There are two things that I am continuing to struggle with about this.

First: Learning to cope better. Before my diagnosis, I avoided situations where I had problems. If I ran into a problematic situation, I'd just guess at what was said and hope it was close enough. Because of this, I avoided things like using telephones with strangers and most hearing social gatherings.

Now, I'm learning to cope better. In 1 on 1 conversations, I ask people to repeat themselves when I can't understand, sometimes stopping them mid-sentence or asking multiple times. I'm still struggling with group conversations, work meetings, and social gatherings, but I'm learning. I'm also starting to face social gatherings head on and try to cope there, instead of just hiding and avoiding.


I also wonder how CAPD relates to the Deaf/HoH community. I find ASL communication and environments very nice. I can socialize with strangers there in a way that I have never been able to do in similar, but hearing, environments. Communication problems are expected since I'm new to sign, unlike the expectation that I should always understand spoken English in hearing environments.

When asked if I'm hearing or why I am learning ASL or why I come to Deaf Chat, I need to talk about my CAPD experience, and I don't know how to explain clearly and quickly.

Some folks on alldeaf.com suggest saying that I'm HoH. Most of my hearing friends also describe me as HoH. But others say that HoH isn't correct since I don't have any difficulty detecting and receiving sounds. People I've met in the Deaf community default to thinking of me as hearing until I spend more time talking about my experiences of CAPD, after which they aren't sure how to describe me either. My ASL teacher suggested a sign for my identity that looks like "mixed," as in a mix of some experiences that are like hearing and some that are like Deaf/HoH.


Whatever the case, I am enjoying my interactions with the Deaf community and the chance to socialize in ways that have been previously inaccessible to me in the hearing world. I am also learning a lot about how to face my challenges instead of just hiding from them and avoiding difficult situations.

I appreciate the opportunity to share here. Thank you for reading.

 

[green427]

Thanks for sharing.....I am not very familiar with CAPD.

Obviously you can carry a conversation visually (i.e. chatting on this forum), so it sounds like you would benefit from a full sign-language conversation.

You did well explaining your situation...you can 'hear', but the signals leaving your inner ear and not being 'processed' properly before they get to the 'communication center' in your brain. To me, that is not HOH or any form of deafness, but a neurological condition, am I correct?

Curious....have you tried reading lips? It was the only way I could survive in the hearing world before learning ASL.

 

[joycem137]

Thanks for sharing.....I am not very familiar with CAPD.

Obviously you can carry a conversation visually (i.e. chatting on this forum), so it sounds like you would benefit from a full sign-language conversation.

Visual conversation is a delight to me, since it is not affected by background noise, accents, or other auditory mush. The more I learn ASL, the happier I am. I'm even teaching my friends what ASL I know and encouraging them to take classes and study it so that we can communicate when audio doesn't work well.

You did well explaining your situation...you can 'hear', but the signals leaving your inner ear and not being 'processed' properly before they get to the 'communication center' in your brain. To me, that is not HOH or any form of deafness, but a neurological condition, am I correct?

Basically correct, as I understand it, and yes, it is a neurological condition. However, according to my audiologist, CAPD *is* considered a physical hearing disability and is sometimes referred to as "central hearing loss" or "central deafness" in online medical articles and stuff. But even among those, they all seem to have different names for it. So I have no idea.

Curious....have you tried reading lips? It was the only way I could survive in the hearing world before learning ASL.

Since learning about my CAPD, I've begun watching people's lips when I'm having audio troubles, to try to see if I can learn to match their movements to meaning. I wish I had spent time learning it earlier, but since I was able to avoid CAPD problems by avoiding the normal hearing social scene, I never learned it.


One thing I worry about is giving the wrong impression about how hard or easy it is for me to communicate with speech. I *CAN* find spoken communication easy. In my quiet house with no TV or radio, talking to friends whose voices I know well, you wouldn't know I had a "hearing disability". But I can *ALSO* find spoken communication difficult or impossible. Going to a noisy professional networking event with music in the background and dozens of people all chatting with each other, I can be incapable of communicating despite the fact that the hearing people all around me do just fine.

 

[KristinaB]

My daughter has CAPD and her hearing loss is listed as mild, but in the speech recognition area only. She can hear sounds at all pitch and decibels, they just are not clear. She says the speech sounds like someone talking underwater. She cannot process multiple step commands. We have to type out directions, put them into a clear page protector and give her a blank sheet of paper and a dry-erase marker. She moves the blank paper down the list and crosses off with the dry erase marker when she completes a step. She was diagnosed when she was 4 and she is 18 now.

 

[joycem137]

My daughter has CAPD and her hearing loss is listed as mild, but in the speech recognition area only. She can hear sounds at all pitch and decibels, they just are not clear. She says the speech sounds like someone talking underwater. She cannot process multiple step commands. We have to type out directions, put them into a clear page protector and give her a blank sheet of paper and a dry-erase marker. She moves the blank paper down the list and crosses off with the dry erase marker when she completes a step. She was diagnosed when she was 4 and she is 18 now.

The multi-step commands thing is a really good strategy... I never knew about my issues with lists, so I always just sort of floundered with them. I developed a reputation for being unreliable for stuff like that, and constantly frustrated people around me that were depending on me. I did develop habits and skills to work around it, but when I couldn't avoid the list somehow, I generally did bad with it.

My hearing sounds similar to your daughter's. Speech, when present in noise, sounds really garbled. I generally describe it as nonsensical babble. It all starts to blur together as incomprehensible nonsense.

What specific type of CAPD does your daughter have? My only major abnormality is in speech-in-noise comprehension. Everything else tests "normal" although some of it is borderline abnormal, and definitely below average. What other sorts of coping mechanisms does your daughter use to handle hearing?

 

[drphil]

On the face of it-having CAPD would have no impact on the "processing of ASL" which is visual.

From prior class at Canadian Hearing Society/Toronto Speechreading classes the best anyone can "do" is about 30% of spoken English words. Lots are "down one's throat" thus one using their hearing to distinguish which word applies. Example: pat/mat/bat are identical on your lips-which applies: context.

Aside: my speechreading "ability" decreased after becoming bilateral DEAF-December 20, 2006. I actually took Speechreading again while waiting for the process of determining if I was "suitable" for an Implant. In actual tests- decreased over 40%. Not a surprise to my teacher-then.

That is "why" DEAF persons have "great difficulty " Speechreading-don't" hear",

 

[KristinaB]

What specific type of CAPD does your daughter have? My only major abnormality is in speech-in-noise comprehension. Everything else tests "normal" although some of it is borderline abnormal, and definitely below average. What other sorts of coping mechanisms does your daughter use to handle hearing?

We weren't told about any specific type of CAPD. I know with her hearing tests, she has a mild hearing loss, and she totally bombs out on the speech recognition. With one-on-one conversation she is fine. If we five are sitting at the table playing a game or talking, she is somewhat fine, but go to a restaurant and she only talks with me as I sit next to her.

Her routine is basically, what I would consider "boring". She sleeps in till noon or 1pm. MP4 player with headphones on full blast. Then to breakfast with music going. Back to bedroom and either goes onto computer with headphones, or rides her bike outside with headphones on. Certain days of the week she has chores that we have listed and she marks them off one at a time. Dinner, then she paces the kitchen while I am on computer with her headphones going. When I finish on computer, she's back on until between 1-4 am. We have a few neighbors that she can handle talking with, so for the most part, she's okay. She can't handle crowds or groups. She can't read a recipe and follow it. She can't follow most instructions for things like Lego's or building things. I have to re-type them and do it like I do her bedroom cleaning list. She could not handle public school at all. She was dizzy most of the time and with her other learning problems, she did not do well at all. We home schooled her. She has various learning problems, so at 18, she has a 3rd grade level in math, science and history, 5th grade level in most other subjects. She never learned to read until she was 9.

 

[Anij]

Wirelessly posted (Blackberry Bold )

Most of the time CAPD and APD cannot be further isolated into subtypes.

CAPD is the term for a specific type of APD.

There are now official definitive tests to indicate much more than one has CAPD or APD (and even those tests are more "informative" than "diagnostic")

People with APD are hard of hearing, even if they do not have hearing loss. The issues with APD is the brain not interpreting sound correctly - which by definition makes hearing (understanding) difficult, ie hoh.

 

[joycem137]

People with APD are hard of hearing, even if they do not have hearing loss. The issues with APD is the brain not interpreting sound correctly - which by definition makes hearing (understanding) difficult, ie hoh.

What you say makes sense, and fits with what the online medical articles online seem to say. I think difficulty comes from the fact that APD is a highly variable disorder. Many people with APD are often misdiagnosed as having a no problem or a psychological problem, even though their hearing difficulties, in some areas, can be significant. From one doctoral thesis I read online, many people with APD go through phases where they doubt even their own APD, often because they have arranged their lives to avoid situations where they might have problems hearing.

 

[Anij]

Wirelessly posted (Blackberry Bold )

While APD is variable and often misunderstood (as well as misdiagnosed, or denied) ... So is hearing loss - there are many people who have mild-moderate hearing loss who experience almost identical "practical challenges" (social, emotional, identity etc) as those who have APD.

This is largely because when one has mild-moderate HL, or APD the environment makes a massive difference (far more than if one has severe- profound) in one's ability to function either as "almost like hearing" or "very Hoh, even deaf". In quiet situations it's an eneitrely different situation than noise ... Something which can take a long time to adapt to and accept/understand and work with.

 

[dogmom]

Anij, joyce, Kristina,
TRUE that! I so identify with what you wrote, Anij!

I often feel like I'm constantly tossed about between two very different elements because sometimes I feel like I'm drowning in this sea of hearing people who have no visual cues at all and I'm like "whatwhatwhatwhat"..... and it feels very alien

and other times if it's just a certain way or environment I can be with hearing friends who have quiet little voices like mine and we converse with speech and it "works" though I may still miss things.

 

[joycem137]

Anij, joyce, Kristina,
TRUE that! I so identify with what you wrote, Anij!

I often feel like I'm constantly tossed about between two very different elements because sometimes I feel like I'm drowning in this sea of hearing people who have no visual cues at all and I'm like "whatwhatwhatwhat"..... and it feels very alien

and other times if it's just a certain way or environment I can be with hearing friends who have quiet little voices like mine and we converse with speech and it "works" though I may still miss things.

An interesting and familiar perspective.

 

[Lazarus404]

There are some tonal hearing related tests on this site. With these, I get really high results; 95% for visual sound recognition, 91.7% for tonal memory, 0.4125hz in the adaptive test. Those are really good, but they're music related, which apparently works from the opposite side of the brain to conversational sound etc.

With music, I hear in clarity. It relaxes me, and I can replay music in my head in a "photographic" fashion (for want of a better term). However, in non-musical related sound environments, it's a whole different ballgame. Just sitting in a quiet room and having a conversation gives me an auditory sensation that feels akin to not actually having the conversation at all. In mild to noisy environments, sounds make no sense at all. I misunderstand people in any environment, have the auditory memory of a goldfish and find that any sound that isn't music just plain stresses me out.

When people find out about this, I explain to them that I have auditory dyslexia. It's not exactly on the mark, but it describes half of what I experience. The other half is:

* disassociation,
* an inability to understand where or what is causing a noise, or that a noise was made at all,
* an impairment of other senses while my auditory sense is "bearing a load / in use".

Another way of describing my CAPD is by explaining how we all learn differently using different senses. Thus, my CAPD is like the guy that has no sense of smell, with the exception that his probably causes him less issues, short of a gas filled house on roast day

I own a book (which I've misplaced somewhere) called "when the brain can't hear". I think those five words sum it all up quite nicely.

 

[Lazarus404]

Anij, joyce, Kristina,
TRUE that! I so identify with what you wrote, Anij!

I often feel like I'm constantly tossed about between two very different elements because sometimes I feel like I'm drowning in this sea of hearing people who have no visual cues at all and I'm like "whatwhatwhatwhat"..... and it feels very alien

and other times if it's just a certain way or environment I can be with hearing friends who have quiet little voices like mine and we converse with speech and it "works" though I may still miss things.

That's an interesting way of putting it. Do you sometimes get a sensation like you're being dive bombed by sound? Kinda like the noises each come closer and then far away in succession as though you were being boxed by them in a ring?

Sorry, I've no other way to describe it.

 

[joycem137]

With music, I hear in clarity. It relaxes me, and I can replay music in my head in a "photographic" fashion (for want of a better term). However, in non-musical related sound environments, it's a whole different ballgame. Just sitting in a quiet room and having a conversation gives me an auditory sensation that feels akin to not actually having the conversation at all. In mild to noisy environments, sounds make no sense at all. I misunderstand people in any environment, have the auditory memory of a goldfish and find that any sound that isn't music just plain stresses me out.

When it comes to tone, I'm great. I actually use tone to a substantial degree when trying to understand what people are saying. Like, if someone is asking me for something, I'll only hear the word "chair" in their sentence, and recognize the questioning tone, at which point I'll have to figure out what they're asking me about the chair.

I enjoy music, but I approach words funny in music. Either the words have to be super-clear, memorized ahead of time, or indistinct and irrelevant to the song. Otherwise, the music just frustrates me.

When people find out about this, I explain to them that I have auditory dyslexia. It's not exactly on the mark, but it describes half of what I experience. The other half is:

* disassociation,
* an inability to understand where or what is causing a noise, or that a noise was made at all,
* an impairment of other senses while my auditory sense is "bearing a load / in use".

(snip)

I own a book (which I've misplaced somewhere) called "when the brain can't hear". I think those five words sum it all up quite nicely.

I like your comment about "an impairment of other senses while my auditory sense is "bearing a load / in use"." I haven't thought to explain that to people when I'm trying to explain what accommodations I need from people.

I am currently reading the book that you mention. It has been very interesting.

 

[Lazarus404]

When it comes to tone, I'm great. I actually use tone to a substantial degree when trying to understand what people are saying. Like, if someone is asking me for something, I'll only hear the word "chair" in their sentence, and recognize the questioning tone, at which point I'll have to figure out what they're asking me about the chair.

I do this, too, but I'm usually wrong

I like your comment about "an impairment of other senses while my auditory sense is "bearing a load / in use"." I haven't thought to explain that to people when I'm trying to explain what accommodations I need from people.

I am currently reading the book that you mention. It has been very interesting.

I have to explain this everytime to my wife when the kids are arguing in the back seat of the car and I'm driving. If they make too much noise, it affects my vision which is dangerous. I usually see spots and I lose focus. However, having the radio on in the car doesn't seem to cause any issues.

 

[joycem137]

I do this, too, but I'm usually wrong


I have to explain this everytime to my wife when the kids are arguing in the back seat of the car and I'm driving. If they make too much noise, it affects my vision which is dangerous. I usually see spots and I lose focus. However, having the radio on in the car doesn't seem to cause any issues.

No problem with radio when driving, unless I'm also trying to carry on a conversation.

 

[Lazarus404]

That's a given

 

[joycem137]

That's a given

Well, yes.

 

[dereksbicycles]

If someone told me that they had CAPD while hanging out at a Deaf event, I would have no clue myself. I would want to know myself what CAPD is. Don't feel bad if anyone asks you to explain CAPD.