Diagnostic testing to identify struggles

[Outdated]

And yet, when I'm in nature, in a forest, I can hear all the birds, the leaves rustling, etc.

This is true for me too, I have better hearing than most dogs. Literally. When I was living in the bush I relied on my trained hunting hound Ruby to feed me, but my sight and hearing were far better than hers.

 

[vergil96]

I seem to relate better to the experiences of those who are diagnosed as ASD2 on the forum, as well.

Same, in other communities as well.

I'm also achieving the things that most people achieve, but I'm tired and I get ill from exhaustion.

When people are talking in a crowded pub, for example, they are able to filter out the unwanted sounds and only hear the voices of the people they are talking to.

I hear total gibberish. The way I understand it, I hear quiet sounds as louder than most people and they overshadow conversations. And loud sounds probably like most people would hear a plane taking off. But it applies to all kinds of input, I don't know about visual, but I have the same kind of problems with smell, something that other people perceive as being there but tolerable gets me vomiting and suffocating. Same logic applies to all senses.

Example: Do I talk to myself out loud when I think nobody can hear me? Of course not!. But my wife recently told me that she hears me doing it all of the time.

I thoght I make enoigh eye contact until not long ago until a few people pointed it out.

I've been like this since birth and it was always a struggle trying to socialise, it never came easy. In a crowded situation I rely on a combination of lip reading and body language in order to properly understand people. Learning to listen like this became natural to me and I hate talking on the phone because voice alone does not convey all the information I rely on in order to work out what people are saying.

It's a strange situation, it seems to take a while for my brain to interpret voices in to meanings, yet watching people in a a real life situation I can understand them instantly and extremely well. I'm extremely sensitive to body language and gestures. I also get along with animals very well because I understand their language.

Same.

I don't use the phone except with family. And I read lips. And same about animals and small children. I wanted to get hearing aid and it turned out it's a processing issue, so I gave up on CBT for that, because I'm already too exhausted trying to remember about different behaviours and habits. But Loops earplus help, that's a positive solution, not another layer of masking / paranoid self-control.

 

[AspieChris]

And I read lips.

Holy crap! I just realized I have been reading lips for probably 40 years! If someone is talking to me in a crowded place and they turn around, I can’t understand what they’re saying.

 

[Outdated]

I was still in my 20s when I realised I was doing that.

 

[AspieChris]

I thoght I make enoigh eye contact until not long ago until a few people pointed it out

I’m an eye-contact master now. I have a mathematical equation that I use. 2 seconds of direct eye contact, then I find a great reason to look away (like fumbling for my keys or finishing an e-mail). Then 2 more seconds of direct eye contact. After the 3rd or 4th round, I’ll start walking to my car or get up to go to the bathroom. If the conversation is obviously going to continue, I’ll pause and walk halfway back towards the person and start all over.

It’s a bit of work. But nobody has ever figured it out and everyone thinks I’m completely engaged in the conversation.

 

[vergil96]

This is true for me too, I have better hearing than most dogs. Literally. When I was living in the bush I relied on my trained hunting hound Ruby to feed me, but my sight and hearing were far better than hers.

Same. I detect quiet sounds and unclear movement the most. I liked to think I got some strong hunter genes, because that would be useful for hunting.

It's curious tho, I wonder if it's because I'm less stressed out, when it's quieter or if I'm better able to have a conversation, but I have noticed that people don't respond as angrily to poor eye contact when I wear ear plugs *shrug* Idk what the logic behind it is, maybe they switch from thinking that I'm rude and ignoring to "this person has health issues, he can't hear or see some things, it's not a choice"

 

[Outdated]

I have no problems looking people in the eye, quite the opposite, I discovered that if you look them in the eye too intently they find it very disturbing. But as a child I was taught to imagine a triangle on their faces, from tip of nose to both pupils, and to allow my vision to raom around that triangle while talking to people.

When I met people from a remote aboriginal community one of the ladies told me that culturally they find this looking in the eyes to be very disturbing. Looking an animal in the eyes is what you do when hunting, it's how you tell what the animal's thinking and which way it's going to run next. They find it very disturbing when people watch their eyes like that. So they tend to mostly talk to each other's shoulders, occasionally glancing up at the eyes when they want to add emphasis to a comment.

 

[vergil96]

I’m an eye-contact master now. I have a mathematical equation that I use. 2 seconds of direct eye contact, then I find a great reason to look away (like fumbling for my keys or finishing an e-mail). Then 2 more seconds of direct eye contact. After the 3rd or 4th round, I’ll start walking to my car or get up to go to the bathroom. If the conversation is obviously going to continue, I’ll pause and walk halfway back towards the person and start all over.

It’s a bit of work. But nobody has ever figured it out and everyone thinks I’m completely engaged in the conversation.

In my case what the problem is:
- people sometimes figure out I look at somewhere else on their face and are like "dude, you don't like me or what?" but I just can't do that for long enough, quick glimpse and then nose, eyebrow, whatever. I used to think until not long ago that looking at the face constitutes eye contact.
- I can't focus on conversations and look at people at the same time when it's loud or the subject of the conversation is complex and requires thinking, I look at some calm background then. Some people seem not to get that

 

[Outdated]

but I have noticed that people don't respond as angrily to poor eye contact when I wear ear plugs *shrug*

I've been thinking of doing that myself for the sake of their noise cancelling qualities. Crowded shopping centres etc. I'm resisting that though and trying to build my tolerance up instead.

After living in a very remote area for a decade I have almost no tolerance to noise at all. The last place I was living in of a night time you could hear if a car drove along the main road 7 Km away, and that didn't happen every night.

 

[Outdated]

In my case what the problem is:
- people sometimes figure out I look at somewhere else on their face and are like "dude, you don't like me or what?" but I just can't do that for long enough, quick glimpse and then nose, eyebrow, whatever. I used to think until not long ago that looking at the face constitutes eye contact.
- I can't focus on conversations and look at people at the same time when it's loud or the subject of the conversation is complex and requires thinking, I look at some calm background then. Some people seem not to get that

The other way in which I was socially successful was actually a dirty little trick but it works. If I was the one doing all the talking then they all had to look at my eyes and listen to what I was saying, I didn't have to do as much listening.

So I became a bit of an entertainer too, telling stories and jokes. And randomly solving other people's problems and cleaning up their Windows laptops for them while I was at it. I'm intelligent, I have an encyclopaedic memory, and I'm educated, eloquent and articulate. People seemed to find that a charming combination and I was always quite popular.

Tip a few beers in to me and I could talk all night.

[Edit] Don't forget the beer, I couldn't do it as well without.

 

[vergil96]

When I met people from a remote aboriginal community one of the ladies told me that culturally they find this looking in the eyes to be very disturbing. Looking an animal in the eyes is what you do when hunting, it's how you tell what the animal's thinking and which way it's going to run next. They find it very disturbing when people watch their eyes like that. So they tend to mostly talk to each other's shoulders, occasionally glancing up at the eyes when they want to add emphasis to a comment.

Wow, that's very interesting. It makes sense.

Yes, too much eye contact gets read as aggressive or creepy. When I talked about it with one of my friends, she said she doesn't make much eye contact in order not to be overwhelming to others, although she has no issues with looking people in the eyes.

But as a child I was taught to imagine a triangle on their faces, from tip of nose to both pupils, and to allow my vision to raom around that triangle while talking to people.

I was taught something similar. I was told I was shy and that I would appear more confident if I made more eye contact but in order to do that an not feel nervous, you would look at the nose and eyebrows or at people's foreheads when they are further e.g. during a presentation.

 

[AspieChris]

Tip a few beers in to me and I could talk all night.

I was a very popular person in my 20’s, thanks to beer

 

[Outdated]

I had speech therapy of a sort when I was 7 years old too. Some excerpts from my book:
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My grade 1 teacher told Mum that I had severe learning difficulties and would probably need to go to a special school. Mum thought my grade 1 teacher must have been the one with difficulties, I passed the exams with straight "A"s all the way down the page.
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My grade 2 teacher told Mum that I was dyslexic and that I would probably never learn to read and write, Mum burst out laughing and the teacher got really cross and told Mum that she wasn't taking her child's education seriously. Mum laughed so hard she nearly wet herself. Once again I passed the exams with straight "A"s all the way down the page.
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My grade 3 teacher was one of those truly brilliant teachers that stand out from the crowd, Mrs McFetridge. She was a very strict and stern old lady with her hair done up in a bun but she was also scrupulously fair and very intelligent. I loved her and was terrified of her at the same time. She arranged a meeting with Mum early in the year to discuss my problems. She told Mum that my last two teachers had just been silly young girls that didn't know one end of a baby from the other, she said I had no learning difficulty, in fact quite the opposite, I was bored because I learned too quickly and easily.

She said the problem I had was with reading out loud and she thought I might be "tongue-tied", a situation caused by too short an amount of loose skin under the tongue restricting movement and therefore speech. She told Mum that this could be easily corrected by deliberate exercise and recommended that Mum take me to visit an old friend of hers, a Catholic Priest.

No, that's not headed where you think, my Mum was very good at pretending to be a lot more naive than she was but she wasn't going to leave her little boy alone with a priest. The priest was a very old and very large man and seemed very happy all the time, I liked him. He gave me lessons in public speaking, or more accurately, how to deliver a sermon without the benefit of a microphone, how to make your voice very loud without yelling and how to read at that volume with perfect diction so that even people at the back of the church can hear every word clearly.

Mrs McFetridge also encouraged me by getting me to read stories to the rest of the class. My parents soon regretted my taking those lessons. So did many other people over the years and there's been quite a few girlfriends that will tell you I'm very good at delivering a sermon.

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And the book is a personal thing. I wrote my entire life story, an autobiography, as a way of trying to make sense of my life in a way that would also make sense to others. Some of you might find this helpful too, exorcise a few old ghosts.

 

[Progster]

This is true for me too, I have better hearing than most dogs. Literally. When I was living in the bush I relied on my trained hunting hound Ruby to feed me, but my sight and hearing were far better than hers.

I have average hearing for my age, but I notice a lot more. Most people automatically tune out unwanted or irrelevant sound, but I find that very difficult to do.

 

[Outdated]

I have average hearing for my age, but I notice a lot more. Most people automatically tune out unwanted or irrelevant sound, but I find that very difficult to do.

That was part that I struggled to understand before I knew anything about autism. In a crowded pub it was like I was deaf, I could hardly hear anyone, but if someone dropped a coin I could tell them what denomination and where it rolled to.

 

[Outdated]

Just thought I should add a little clarity about the Australian education system back then. The teachers weren't allowed to do exams. That was all done by special government examiners. Even in grade 1 at the end of the year the whole year level had to march down the road to a public hall for exams.

I preferred this system, it didn't matter what the teachers thought of me, I always got straight As.

 

[Progster]

My grade 1 teacher told Mum that I had severe learning difficulties and would probably need to go to a special school. Mum thought my grade 1 teacher must have been the one with difficulties, I passed the exams with straight "A"s all the way down the page.

My parents were told at one point that I needed to be put in a slow learners class. My dad would have none of that and thought I was getting behind because I wasn't trying. So he arranged private remedial lessons for me, and made me sit and do a kind of IQ test every evening after school, and wouldn't let me eat until I finished it. This went on for a few weeks, I think. I didn't do well with the remedial teacher - I just shut down (in her house) and barely spoke. She told my parents she thought I might be autistic. They would have none of it, but took me to the GP anyway. The GP was a nice guy, I knew him already and talked to him, made some eye contact, told him I had 1 friend at school. So he told my parents I couldn't possibly have autism, and they were then really mad at the private tutor for suggesting such a thing.

 

[Outdated]

I was the boy genius, the school square, just another reason for the other kids to hate me. My older sister always struggled with schoolwork and I used to do all her homework for her.

She wasn't stupid though, far from it. She could do quite complex maths in her head but when she tried to put pen to paper she'd shut down and couldn't do it. Something about the act of abstraction just doesn't work for her. She also can't read a map, you have to turn it up the right way for her and then she still struggles to make sense of it.

 

[Outdated]

So when it came to socialising I had a few advantages that many don't. I think the speech therapy was a huge thing though, proper voice control. That combined with the acting that just comes naturally for us made it a lot easier for me to entertain people. I do tend to talk with my hands a bit too, they get the whole act.

 

[AspieChris]

That was part that I struggled to understand before I knew anything about autism. In a crowded pub it was like I was deaf, I could hardly hear anyone, but if someone dropped a coin I could tell them what denomination and where it rolled to.

I’m very handy. Fixing cars, build doghouses, etc.

If I drop a screw, even on carpet, I will hear it and know exactly where it went. Even in the dark. But I can’t hear my wife speaking if the television is on.