They may be told by friends and family that they’re just “hard of hearing,” and encouraged to give up on wearing hearing aids altogether. The problem is that many adults who have a history of auditory processing difficulties in childhood continue to experience them as adults, but without any apparent hearing loss. At Ontario Hearing Centers, we can give you a communication assessment to establish if you have auditory processing disorder and provide options to help you enjoy better communication and social relationships.Īdults with APD often don’t get the help they need because their symptoms are misunderstood. This is why it’s important to not self-diagnose and seek medical attention as soon as you notice any of these symptoms. That being said, you can see that their symptoms really do overlap, right? Meanwhile, a person with auditory processing disorder may have difficulty hearing in background noise, difficulty in following verbal instructions, poor listening skills and may appear to be distracted. It also stated that it’s sometimes difficult to see the difference between the two, since the characteristics and symptoms of APD and ADHD tend to overlap.Ī person with ADHD may be inattentive, distracted, fidgety, restless, and hyperactive. In a review published in Ear and Hearing, a study showed that 10% of children with APD have confirmed or suspected ADHD. If you experience these or similar symptoms of APD, consult an audiologist or speech pathologist for a formal assessment.It has been noted that auditory processing disorder is linked to ADHD. You have trouble discerning if your boss is angry with you when she calls you in for a meeting.Often you don’t notice your phone is ringing and miss important calls.Sometimes you make “silly” or “careless” mistakes, like adding instead of subtracting.When co-workers speak to you in busy places, like the cafeteria, you have trouble clearly understanding.You have difficulty remembering and following multi-step directions.These or similar manifestations of APD be may be apparent at work: Auditory Processing Disorder Symptoms at Work In elementary school, you lagged behind other kids in language arts, even though you were great at math.In conversations, you always get the feeling you’re missing something.When you’re out with friends at a noisy bar, you can’t comprehend what’s going on.After meeting people at a cocktail party, you can’t remember any of their names.When you leave your grocery list at home, you’re mystified as to what was on it.You have difficulty finding your way around town.Despite wanting to listen to your partner’s requests, you are always in trouble for not paying attention when she asks you to do something.You listen to the TV at full volume, but still have difficulty understanding what’s going on.This, and other common manifestations of APD may be apparent for adults at home: “What?” and “Huh?” are your most common responses. Auditory Processing Disorder Symptoms in Adults at Home We call these problems Central Auditory Processing Disorders.” Some adults have problems in converting these electrical neuronal impulses into meaning. “The brain processes these electrical impulses into sounds, then into words, and then into meaningful sentences and ideas,” Kutscher says. From this point, what the listener thinks he “hears” is actually a series of silent electrical stimuli carried by neuronal wires.The listener’s eardrums vibrate, causing movement of three tiny bones that, in turn, stimulate the cochlear nerve.The speaker’s vocal cords produce a sequence of vibrations that travel invisibly through the air and land on the recipient’s eardrums.Here’s what happens in an exchange between speaker and listener: “What you think you ‘hear’ is a virtual-reality recreation of sounds that stopped at your eardrum and, from there on, exist as soundless electrical impulses.” “There’s no tiny speaker inside your brain that relays messages from the outside,” explains neurologist Martin Kutscher, M.D., author of ADHD – Living without Brakes. For many people, living with APD is “like trying to listen on a cell phone with the signal cutting in and out,” according to Lois Kam Heymann, M.A., CCC-SLP. Auditory processing disorder in adults may manifest as poor listening skills, poor reading comprehension, or miscommunication that causes trouble with coworkers, partners, family and friends. APD makes it difficult to understand and interpret information presented orally. “Garbled.” That’s how many adults describe communicating and living with auditory processing disorder (APD).
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