Article on APD

Didn't know Rosie O'Donnell's son had this, but the article describes
it to a T from my point of view.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/little-known-disorder-can-take-a-toll-on-learning/?ref=todayspaper

This main part especially (quoted from the article):

---beginning of snip---
It began with a haircut before her son started first grade. Blake had
already been working with a speech therapist on his vague responses
and other difficulties, so when he asked for a "little haircut" and
she pressed him on his meaning, she told the barber he wanted short
hair like his brother's. But in the car later, Blake erupted in tears,
and Ms. O'Donnell realized her mistake. By "little haircut," Blake
meant little hair should be cut. He wanted a trim.

"I pulled off on the freeway and hugged him," Ms. O'Donnell said. "I
said: 'Blakey, I'm really sorry. I didn't understand you. I'll do
better.' "

That was a turning point. Ms. O'Donnell's quest to do better led her
to Ms. Heymann, who determined that while Blake could hear perfectly
well, he had trouble distinguishing between sounds. To him, words like
"tangerine" and "tambourine," "bed" and "dead," may sound the same.

"The child hears 'And the girl went to dead,' and they know it doesn't
make sense," Ms. Heymann told me. "But while they try to figure it
out, the teacher continues talking and now they're behind. Those
sounds are being distorted or misinterpreted, and it affects how the
child is going to learn speech and language."

Blake's brain struggled to retain the words he heard, resulting in a
limited vocabulary and trouble with reading and spelling. Abstract
language, metaphors like "cover third base," even "knock-knock" jokes,
were confusing and frustrating.

Children with auditory processing problems often can't filter out
other sounds. The teacher's voice, a chair scraping the floor and
crinkling paper are all heard at the same level. "The normal reaction
by the parent is 'Why don't you listen?' " Ms. Heymann said. "They
were listening, but they weren't hearing the right thing."

--- end of snip ---

My own experience includes an incident when I was around five years of
age. The speech therapist told me that if I didn't say what she did,
that my mother would leave me there and never come back for me. I
looked up at the door. My mother was standing on the other side,
looking in, saw me look up, and smiled, waving. Her mouth opened and
she said, "Bye!" I was petrified but still couldn't say what the
woman wanted. It was not until I was in my twenties that I confronted
my mother about it. She had no idea what I was talking about at
first, then exclaimed, "Oh! I used to look in on you, yes. I might
have waved and said "hi" but I would never have gone along with what
she said. In fact, I took you out of there because I saw her hit you
once. She threatened me with Child Services and everything, but I
wouldn't bring you back to her after that." I replayed the video
memory in my head many times after that, and realized that "hi" and
"bye" look very similar when you're lip-reading at five years old.
That one revelation all but erased years of built-up anger towards her
for wanting to leave me just because I couldn't talk right.

I also once heard my mother say "I'm all out of panty-liners" when she
had really said "I'm all out of candy bars." I had no contextual
reference at the time, and an argument ensued because I responded in
what I thought was a helpful manner while she thought I was teasing
her. It was the first time I remember that she withdrew and asked me
what I'd heard, rather than both of us just storming off into our
separate corners. I was in my late teens at the time.

My vocabulary never suffered that much, though, because Mom, God bless
her, taught me the value of the Written Word at a VERY early age. In
fact, my coping mechanisms were strengthened greatly by my love and
appreciation of the written word. I didn't learn words by hearing
them, I learned them by reading them. Eventually, I knew so many that
when I didn't understand a spoken word, I could look up the sounds in
my internal Dictionary and figure out what was really said by making
comparisons to other words that might sound similar. Sometimes, I
hear an unfamiliar word only to realize I never knew how it was
pronounced, just spelled! Then my brain makes a new connection.

And yes, background noise is horrible. Just horrible. Crowds are
worse, but they make me give up entirely so it's less taxing.
Background noise means I /should/ hear but I don't, and it puts
tremendous strain on my energy reserves while I try to compensate.

~w