I found out that i have ADHD through a process of dealing with a hearing issue - I have something called auditory processing disorder (APD), which means while I have excellent hearing, my brain has difficulty processing speech in high noise environments, especially with multiple people or frequencies that correlate to women. ADHD and autism spectrum disorders are highly correlated with it.
A friend who is an audiologist was out with me at an event and basically spotted the adaptations that I had adopted subconsciously over my life (I’m in my 40s). I then got tested and confirmed. It’s likely a result of many consecutive ear infections I had as a kid.
When reading up on APD, the literature describes stories of various people… and it was like looking back on a story of my life. The ADHD correlation is thought to be related because of the way the brain develops (or doesn’t) in the presence or absence of stimuli.
I say this because it would be easy to dismiss my scenario. By most measurements I’m successful and doing great. But had I known or maybe been treated in the past, certain difficult aspects of my life would have likely been managed better or avoided. Brains are complex, and it’s important not to dismiss that problems that people have.
Clinically ADHD and suspected APD here. I also have excellent hearing in both ears (20k+ hz), but I’m shit at understanding conversations in noisy environments… especially if my wife is speaking. Her voice is markedly harder for me to process than other people’s when there’s background noise. She used to assume I was being ADHD and not paying attention, etc, and get frustrated, but after years of me visibly focusing on her with unreasonable intensity while listening, she started accepting it. It’s always ironic that my hearing is usually noticeably better than any friends or family (both in frequency range and noticing sounds), but I’m often the only one who can’t fully follow conversations at a restaurant/bar/conference/etc.
Yeah that’s remarkably similar to my experience. The only surprise is that my hearing was excellent — all of those punk shows in the 90s didn’t damage my hearing!
If it bugs you, a good audiologist or instrumentation specialist can measure the frequencies impacted and mitigate it with hearing aids. I tried it, and i would best describe it like transitioning from 1080p to 4k. The gotcha is the hearing aids are expensive and it is difficult to get a diagnosis that insurance will cover as it’s technically not a hearing loss.
Same. Excellent hearing but I can’t follow conversations in noisy places. I only catch every other word. It’s like my brain isn’t filtering out the noise in real time so it just stops hearing.
Annoyingly, this can also affect video calls when people don’t speak clearly.
Pretty sure that's what I have too (and am diagnosed ADHD). I used to complain to my Mum that I couldn't hear what people were saying on the bus back home from school. She took me to get a hearing test and it turns out I have bat-like hearing. I'm just not able to seperate out speech from background noise - noisy restaurants and bars are a nightmare.
I found out that i have ADHD through a process of dealing with a hearing issue - I have something called auditory processing disorder (APD), which means while I have excellent hearing, my brain has difficulty processing speech in high noise environments, especially with multiple people or frequencies that correlate to women. ADHD and autism spectrum disorders are highly correlated with it.
A friend who is an audiologist was out with me at an event and basically spotted the adaptations that I had adopted subconsciously over my life (I’m in my 40s). I then got tested and confirmed. It’s likely a result of many consecutive ear infections I had as a kid.
When reading up on APD, the literature describes stories of various people… and it was like looking back on a story of my life. The ADHD correlation is thought to be related because of the way the brain develops (or doesn’t) in the presence or absence of stimuli.
I say this because it would be easy to dismiss my scenario. By most measurements I’m successful and doing great. But had I known or maybe been treated in the past, certain difficult aspects of my life would have likely been managed better or avoided. Brains are complex, and it’s important not to dismiss that problems that people have.