How to get people to accommodate my auditory processing issues.

[Isa e Pally]

So, I hear a lot “you don’t look autistic”, and even when people believe I am autistic, they tend to ignore my needs for accommodations. I am a young researcher and I work at university, and I have auditory processing issues which make it impossible for me to follow oral academic discussions. I can follow normal conversation though (except for word spellings), so I guess that’s why people don’t take me seriously. I have asked multiple times to people to write formulas at the blackboard while they talk, but they just don’t do it: they keep talking and talking and for me it is as if they spoke a different language.

The best solution I came up with, is to record our conversations, but it is not optimal as listening them afterwards and rewinding them is very time consuming.

Also, I don’t manage to just show how lost I am during the discussion, as I feel that people wouldn’t believe/understand it, hence they would just think I am dumb. So people just believe I am following. I wouldn’t even know how to show my distress, and anyway they wouldn’t take me seriously, or they would just get annoyed (and there is a power imbalance between senior professors and a young researcher).

Any idea on how to solve this issue?

 

[Outdated]

I have no ideas on what can be done about it but it's a well known autistic issue. I have exactly the same problem. I'm an extremely good communicator in a one on one situation but as more people join the conversation it becomes more difficult. Get 4 or 5 other people together and it's just as you say, they may as well be speaking a foreign language.

I have the same problem with phone calls, the sound quality is too poor and I also can't read their lips or study their body language for extra clues. I have found that calls made over Whatsapp are easier to understand, it has a far superior sound quality to that of standard phone connections, but it's still not great.

If you're reasonably physically close to the speakers noise cancelling ear buds might be a help, most have a mode that will let you hear close sounds but knock out sounds from further away.

 

[vergil96]

The only way I've found out of such situations (if it's important to follow the conversation in detail) is to say I have problems with my hearing, insist on repetition and written information and be persistent about it. If someone claims it's being dumb or ignoring, I respond angrily that I have hearing issues and explain it until they back away, no matter their status, it doesn't entitle them to condescending remarks.

 

[Judge]

Any idea on how to solve this issue?

Unlikely, IMO. The odds not being in our favor:

* There are a tiny few who will want to understand and succeed.
* There are a few more who want to understand but will fail.
* Leaving the remainder who are more likely to request or demand you conform to them.

Basic considerations to motivate you to keep your autism on a "need-to-know" basis only.

Leaving us to manage our processing sensitivities as best as we can, knowing that only we can most likely alter the equation as opposed to asking others to accommodate us.

However I like the idea of recording conversations though. It can often make up for our shortcomings, particularly relative to real-time speech. Where beyond two or more persons talking in the same time frame may make it impossible to keep up in real time, but be able to dissect individual played later several times if need be.

In essence to think of solutions you can make on your own, rather than depend on others.

Probably not what you want to hear, but you need to know. Keep thinking, I know you can "work the problem" to your advantage. And also that having to do so isn't very pleasant. I'm sorry.

 

[Xinyta]

I am pretty much the in the same train of thought as @Outdated and @Judge as far as how to handle this.

You really cannot control how people think, feel, and react to things. Everyone has thier own veiws on the world. Even if they don't want to admit it.

To echo Judge. You have to figure out how you'd like to handle addressing your quarks and socail situations with the world. No one will know how to do that, but you.

"If you met one Autistic. You met one Autistic."

This applies in a number of ways. As a way to inform NTs we all have things that are different from other autistics of the same or different level. But it works as far as vastly differing perspectives of how we all perceive the world and our Autism, within ourselves.

We must be happy with ourselves first, before we can face the world. And that's the most simple thing you can do.

 

[Masaniello]

A solution? You just have to keep asserting yourself and your disability requirements. I know that sucks but unfortunately, too many people only get it after considerable repetition.

 

[Tom]

I definately get it, including the spelling part. It is an unfortunate situation in that you can't actually control other people's forms of communication. It may be possible with individuals who you get to know well and are willing to work with you, but there will always be (in professional realms) a constant parade of new people who will do what they do.

I loved whiteboards. My office, when I had one was full of them.

If possible as people talked I started drawing it out in outline or diagram under the guise of me trying to picture/understand what they were saying. Or after the conversation (that I did not fully understand) come back to them later with a version drawn out and asking for clarification. I always presented it as a 'me' problem and not a they problem with me having difficulty imputting the data (in my brain) and sometimes people look down on you, but over time they nearly always they came to see I was not dum and had effective and innovative results.

 

[jsilver256]

Sounds like (no pun intended) the real issue is that auditory processing just isn’t recognized as a disability, because having the same accommodations already existing for the deaf (transcripts, etc) would solve it.

I recommend the Google Pixel phone and the Recorder app. You don’t have to get a SIM card or even hook it up to WiFi. The Recorder app has an on-device ML model which translates speech to text, and will save it for later. It is probably the only offline tech capable of doing so because it uses Google Pixel’s unique neural network chips.

Now relying on this does mean that you’re still denied the chance to participate in real time, but it is what it is.

 

[Seladon]

Hyperacusis-haver who has problems following cross-talk, here. What I like to do is practise listening to more than one person talking, in an environment in which I can control or at least walk away from the tempo, volume, subject etc. It looks like listening to podcasts and documentaries, and also people-watching with my ears not my eyes (not eavesdropping on private 1-1 sat convos, more like just tuning into what groups in public spaces are superficially chatting about)

 

[Jonn]

@Isa e Pally

I have both audio and visual processing problems.
I have no idea how that can be improved.

I guess the best thing to do is to be assertive and communicate your limitations.

 

[Jonn]

You really cannot control how people think, feel, and react to things. Everyone has thier own veiws on the world. Even if they don't want to admit it.

Consider this:

Someone who is blind or deaf.

 

[Mary Terry]

Everyone, ND and NT, has their own unique ways of learning. Some people are not auditory learners; others are not visual learners. Stand up for yourself to get the assistance you need and deserve.

 

[Judge]

Everyone, ND and NT, has their own unique ways of learning. Some people are not auditory learners; others are not visual learners. Stand up for yourself to get the assistance you need and deserve.

How true. Something I came face-to-face with as a web designer. When I could learn things optimally on a visual level, but not on a verbal one. I always seemed to struggle when so often technical or graphical things were conveyed to me only on a verbal basis.

And equally apparent when I tried to convey my vision verbally to no avail. To those I was addressing, ultimately I had to make a "composite diagram" for them to understand me.

I could never truly explain why my mind works in such a way. Only that it does.

 

[jsilver256]

For what it's worth, I have a very low ability to follow sign language in conversations or when someone comes up to me with an out-of-context request. I understand all the signs. Just they don't ... process in real time. I assume this is similar to what is meant by auditory processing.

 

[Outdated]

For what it's worth, I have a very low ability to follow sign language in conversations or when someone comes up to me with an out-of-context request. I understand all the signs. Just they don't ... process in real time. I assume this is similar to what is meant by auditory processing.

That's a pretty astute observation. What you describe sounds very similar. It takes us longer than normal to process sounds in to meaning.

In a one on one situation this lag isn't noticeable, most of us can talk to two people at once with no one noticing anything out of the ordinary. Add a third person to the equation and we start to struggle a little, our responses start coming a little more slowly. With 5 other people in the conversation by the time I've come up with a response to a comment the conversation has already moved on and my comment would be out of place or even irrelevant.

We also have another issue with being unable to filter out other sounds, most of us have far better than average hearing and our brains attempt to process every sound they pick up, that's not a voluntary act for us. So in crowded or noisy situations most people can focus and listen to just the one voice that they want to hear, but we can't do that, we just hear a cacophony of noise and it's mentally exhausting trying to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Our brains continuously try to sort these sounds and make sense of them and we can't stop it from trying to do that, so just walking through a crowded shopping centre is mentally draining.

 

[vergil96]

I didn't know until something like two years ago that it wasn't my ears. I used to have a hearing deficit as a child that later disappeared. There was one even in the medical exam in my late teens. Now there is none. Why? Nobody understands.

I recommend the Google Pixel phone and the Recorder app. You don’t have to get a SIM card or even hook it up to WiFi. The Recorder app has an on-device ML model which translates speech to text, and will save it for later. It is probably the only offline tech capable of doing so because it uses Google Pixel’s unique neural network chips.

Wow, I didn't even know such apps existed. This can be so useful. I never record, because I can't understand recordings or sound through the phone and other voice calls. The sound quality is too poor for me and when I can't see someone and rely on visual cues it's also a problem. I noticed that I lip read a lot, because when I avert my eyes from someone, I can suddenly stop hearing them and they seem to speak less clearly... There is also body language and you can pick up a lot from context such as what someone is doing, where they're looking etc. I watch films with subtitles very often, because the sound quality is too poor for me too. Literally all of this is missing on voice recordings and the phone.

In a one on one situation this lag isn't noticeable, most of us can talk to two people at once with no one noticing anything out of the ordinary. Add a third person to the equation and we start to struggle a little, our responses start coming a little more slowly. With 5 other people in the conversation by the time I've come up with a response to a comment the conversation has already moved on and my comment would be out of place or even irrelevant.

I find that I have a more "normal" experience in that regard with ear plugs. It actually shocked me when I started to use them that when the volume decresed I could actually follow more than one person speaking, in addition to hearing more clearly and not being as stressed because of the volume.

 

[Outdated]

I find that I have a more "normal" experience in that regard with ear plugs.

I only recently discovered earplugs and I was quite impressed with the difference that they make, but I had already organised my life in such a way that I no longer really need them. The proper over the ear headphones I bought are even better but I'd feel like an idiot wearing them around in public.

 

[vergil96]

I only recently discovered earplugs and I was quite impressed with the difference that they make, but I had already organised my life in such a way that I no longer really need them. The proper over the ear headphones I bought are even better but I'd feel like an idiot wearing them around in public.

True, headphones attract quite a bit of attention. Earbuds or earplugs are more discreet and the transparent earplugs might even go unnoticed or look like hearing aid.

 

[Outdated]

Earbuds or earplugs are more discreet and the transparent earplugs might even go unnoticed or look like hearing aid.

Earbuds are more socially acceptable because a great number of people can't stand going more than a few minutes without being connected to their phones. And that's one huge flaw I've found with all these earbuds and headphones - they won't work unless connected to a device.

That's not a physical limitation, it's just another case of non-inclusive ideas from software designers. The earbuds are useless to me in a practical sense because I hate the phone and I never take it with me when I go out. With my proper headphones plugging in the 2.5mm stereo pin plug starts them working. They don't really have to be connected to anything, just shove a blind plug in the hole and they're good to go.

 

[WhitewaterWoman]

I remember being a young grad student and experiencing the need to get something explained, but afraid to ask because everyone will think I'm dumb. I so get this.

I basically decided not to care and just keep asking questions.

If you are asking these NT people to learn they need to write things down for you...that is unlikely to happen. They cant be bothered. Try asking in the present moment. Hand up, or excuse me, could you please write down that forumla? Or whatever.

I will also say, I'm sorry, I am having trouble hearing you, could you please repeat that. Now that I have gray hair, people are more tolerant of that excuse.

Auditory processing disorder is a disability NTs can't begin to wrap their minds around. Just using "I have trouble hearing" is good enough. NTs don't know that hearing involves more than the ear.

The other thing I try to do is write as much down as I can. Putting words on paper makes a neuro connection which helps. When I was teaching I required my students take notes. It improved their grades. Don't worry about spelling. Get it down phonetically and figure it out later.

Writing this out has triggered another memory. I would ask a fellow student what something meant, whispering. I frequently got the answer "I don't know either."