Have you ever wondered if you have ADHD? Or maybe that you are on the Autism spectrum (ASD)? Or have you wondered this about your child or your partner? You may have an entirely DIFFERENT disorder- Auditory Processing Disorder (APD).
APD, ADHD and ASD have a significant overlap in symptoms. For example, with all 3 diagnoses it may look like the person is not really listening to you when you are speaking. For people with APD and ADHD, they may both be forgetful, and may have difficulty following directions. For people with ASD and also for people with APD, they may have difficulty interpreting sarcasm or other tonal indicators of speech. Both people with APD as well as ASD can have trouble responding verbally to questions, may fatigue easily when listening to others and may be sensitive to loud noises.
So what’s going on here?
Auditory Processing Disorder is a brain disorder in which the brain is having trouble making sense of what the ears are hearing. Sometimes people mistake it for a hearing problem, because the person with APD may ask you to repeat yourself a lot, or say “huh?” or “what?” frequently. But when you test these folks at the audiologist, there is nothing wrong with their ears. The problem is in how the brain makes sense of those signals. It’s a little bit like dyslexia, in which the eyes can see normally but the parts of the brain that makes sense of written language get confused. The good news is that Auditory Processing Disorder can be treated! Just like with dyslexia, you can remediate, or train the brain to do a better job with interpreting the signals it is getting from the ears. This process takes about an hour each week for 12 weeks and has been shown to reduce listening fatigue and improve attention and memory. While there are treatments that can help reduce the symptoms of ADHD, we don’t actually have a way yet to treat the parts of the brain that are underactive in that disorder. Likewise, with Autism spectrum disorder, we don’t yet have ways to fix the wiring problems going on for people that are on the spectrum.
SO, it’s super important to get diagnosed with APD if you think you have it. Remarkably it only takes about an hour at a qualified audiologists office and the examination is usually covered by insurance.
How did I find out about this you might ask? I actually went to get my hearing checked at the age of 57, thinking that my history of attending too many punk rock shows in my youth had blown my hearing. It turns out my hearing is good! Absolutely perfect in fact. But what wasn’t good was my processing of sounds. There is a problem in the area that connects the two hemispheres (the corpus callosum) that causes my brain to lose information between hearing a sound and interpreting it. I have Auditory Processing Disorder.
I had been told before that I met criteria for ADHD, which made sense to me because both my brother and son have been diagnosed with it, and ADHD is very heritable. But standard ADHD medications did not help me much, despite the fact that both my brother and son responded well to them. But not knowing that APD could look so much like ADHD, I never thought to find out if that could be the issue. And of course you can have BOTH disorders. And as mentioned above, many symptoms of APD also cross over with ASD, so you can have both of those as well. I suppose for some really lucky people they can have all three.
Again, the reason I want to tell people about Auditory Processing Disorder is because essentially there is a cure!! You can do the computer-based training, which is free, for an hour a week and in 3 months have significantly better processing abilities. That’s as close to a cure as we get in neuroscience. And it’s free, has no side effects and is totally painless.
If you have ever wondered if you have ADHD, or are on the Autism spectrum, I would really encourage you to think about getting screened for Auditory Processing Disorder. It could be the missing link you have been looking for!
Common symptoms of Auditory Processing Disorder:
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Difficulty paying attention, especially in noisy or distracting environments.
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Difficulty understanding and following verbal instructions.
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Forgetting things in daily activities, like homework or where they put their keys.
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Struggles with organizing tasks, thoughts, or activities.
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Appearing not to listen: May seem “tuned out” or not to hear when spoken to.
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Often repeating “huh?”, “what?” or asking you to restate what you just said
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Difficulty figuring out where a sound is coming from
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Difficulty understanding spoken language in noisy backgrounds
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Taking longer than typical to respond to when spoke to in conversation
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Difficulty understanding and following rapid speech
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Inconsistent or inappropriate responses
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Reading, spelling, and learning problems
Remember, diagnosis is the beginning of a better quality of life. When we know what we are dealing with, we can research and implement treatments that have been shown to be effective. If you think you may have ADHD or ASD feel free to contact our practice. We offer affordable evaluations for both disorders. We can’t diagnose APD at our office because we are not audiologists. But we would be happy to refer you to one and help you with the other disorders that might get confused with it.
Best wishes!
Dr. Jordan and Associates
