Anybody have APD?

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APD is Auditory Processing Disorder. It's when you hear just fine, but words become jumbled nonsense. You can be looking right at someone who is speaking your native language and it comes out completely unintelligible. When I was little it happened almost all the time and then around 9 years old, the way I noticed it was it seemed to occur in intense episodes, so that I thought that other people developed languages between themselves that I didn't know. Eventually, by adulthood, people usually have developed some sort of work around like lip-reading. Even so, it's worse when there's ambient noise like other people talking or music or tv, so parties, bars, etc., can really be overwhelming and disengaging (is that a word?). Anyway, that, combined with a hyper-sensitivity to stimuli has lead me to nearly avoid social settings like that altogether. Anyone else have similar experiences?

By now, people have grown accustomed to me saying "What?"

I probably have it. I had it more as a kid because I used to hear words wrong and say them wrong. I have difficulty hearing people in loud rooms and I often go what and it's hard to hear people over noise unless they shout.

I was calling it an auditory processing disorder on my own before I ever heard it used as an actual terminology for the same problem...
It has plagued me for as long as I can remember. I can hear water dripping from the faucet while wearing ear plugs to drown out loud music...but listening to people converse often sounds like a bunch of disconnected abstract word noises...it is part of the thing that has always kept me separate from all the other people....and never on the same page as anyone else in a meeting or school situation....
I was cruelly criticized for it by my (allmighty heavy-handed first teacher of social skills ex-boyfriend)
When I was in kindergarten, it must be the reason they tested my hearing over and over and over and over again.

So yes....I reckon i have it...

I have compensated over the years by becoming better at some basic body language specific to my beer-tending job.

I always feel so bad when my friend is in a chattery mood and I lose my focus for an instant and miss all this stuff he has just rattled off to me, but if I ask him to repeat himself, he will surely become upset...so I have to try to fake it, but I don't always succeed....inevitably he will get upset and I have to re-remind him that I have trouble processing too many spoken words...and blah blah....I always have to re-remind him...He has a lot of strong traits, but I don't think he has CAPD...at least he does not acknowledge it.
Before Flakey knew any better, he used to get mad at me for not absorbing everything he said...and he called me "slow on the uptake"...which was his way of calling me dumb.

He knows better now though.

I am much better at absorbing information peripherally than directly for some reason...I will overhear something incidentally and totally retain it, meanwhile I can listen to an entire episode of "Democracy Now"..for example and scarcely be able to tell you a thing about it...I will often replay episodes over and over again just for that reason.

I think I night have a mild form of this. I nornally have no trouble hearing in a quiet environment, but it can be quite difficult to understand what people are saying when there's a significant amount of background noise. It drives me crazy when people try talking to me when I'm listening to my iPod. I may hear the person's voice, but odds are I won't be able to make out the words being said. I'll then be forced to yank out one of my earphones, and say, "What?" It bugs me to have to do that. I wish people would just not talk to me when I have the earphones in. I don't listen to my iPod that much anyway. Normally, I just listen to my iTunes on my computer at home. I generally only use my iPod at the gym (I can NOT exercise without music) and on the rare occasion I'm on a plane, train or bus going on a journey that covers a decent amount of distance. These are not situations in which I want to socialize anyway, but not everyone recognizes the iPod as a "not interested in small talk" sign. Maybe I should have a T-shirt made.
Okay, just went a little off-topic there. I've been sick with a simus thing, and it's making me a bit cranky. Back to the topic at hand... I also have a great deal of trouble identifying where a sound is coming from. For instance, I'll hear banging from my apartment, and I won't be able to tell if it;'s coming from above or below me. In college, I would hear knocking and not know if the knocking was on my door or someone elses. Fortunately, that knocking turned out to virtually never be on my door, so that simplified matters.

Yes. But it is just subsumed under my SPD label.

For so many years, I thought I had a hearing problem. I would get my hearing tested over and over and over, with the same results: I could hear just fine. But if my hearing was normal, why did I keep asking people to repeat themselves? Why did I think they said one thing when they said something else that was similar? Why was I accused of "not paying attention" to what people said?

I know this has cost me some friendships and some jobs. It's still creating difficulties to this day. At least now I know that the real disconnect is between my ears and my brain, not between the source of the sound and my ears. Knowing that helps me to use compensation strategies when possible.

If I have it its triggered by my emotional state.

I'm not certain if I have APD or not. I typically have trouble with background noises, more than most people. I hate trying to carry on conversations with noise around. Also, often enough I'll immediately ask somebody to repeat themselves if I didn't understand what they said, however I found that with time, usually less than 15 seconds, I can understand what they said. It's strange, it sounds nearly unintelligible at first, but given a short time span, I make sense out of it somehow.

Anyone with APD able to relate with the above? Aside from background noise, that is clearly a symptom, I just don't know if delayed processing is or not. I read a little about it and it seems more like "no processing" than "delayed processing" of information when APD gets in the way.

Aside from background noise, and also having great difficulty with lyrics in songs, I don't have too many problems with sound. Somebody having to repeat themselves is only a minor annoyance.

My mum thinks I need my hearing checked, I just tell her it's APD. It's probably not full APD, or has more to do with ADHD or autism. Who knows? I think I've tired of collecting 'disorders' for myself.

Hearing is the one sense I don't have issues with, outside of the occasional mishearing what someone says its fine, not common enough to be a problem.

On the other hand, I have a strong gag reflex related to bad tastes and bad smells and am a very picky eater because of it, can't stand the feeling of things that feel overly dry(Such as dusty boxes) or slimy, and hate bright lights and the glare they cause, especially while driving.

yes. I have APD

As far as I know, I don't have that. Perhaps a milder form with some of the criteria (whatever they even are, sorry...)

My son was diagnosed with an APD after being diagnosed with ADD, around the age of 8 or 9. As he learned to adapt / compensate, it appears to have mostly resolved (according to testing) around age 12 - 13 (?)

I was just asking him about that the other day, and he said that it's much better than it used to be in elementary school. But not completely resolved, just less frequent, less intense & I guess those of us around him are getting used to it, whatever is left of it.

i think i have auditory processing issues. i have particularly sharp hearing, but have always had a problem with multiple conversations going on and background noise. my mum had me referred for a hearing test when i was younger for my apparent deafness, or 'selective hearing' as she liked to put it... whenever i was spoken to it'd be a jumble of words and i'd reflexively ask "what???", and then answer them before they'd finish repeating themselves because i'd managed to decipher what they'd said by then. that's the bit that annoys my friends and family lol

You mean you AREN'T suppose to let others know you have opened a secure comm link with "what?". They have a name for THAT?. I thought I was just a deaf my whole life.

Really, i have 'nerve damage' in both ears. I can't hear high pitches, But thankfully commercials on TV are midrange and rap is low. [Laugh track and rim shot] Background noise is usesless info to me, almost everything I hear is background noise and whisper is really soft background noise. Refuse to watch Nicole Kidman movies.

It actually hurts me inside when I tell people i have 'selective hearing' (thought i made that up myself actually) and they respond back with ancient wisdom, "That's the best kind to have." Nothing shows a person has their act together like "What?, oh yea bla, bla, bla....." I have learned to stop and spend about 2-3 seconds to 'process' the message with often hilarious outcomes. I tell people they need to 'snap me back' to them by saying my name first, or some other non typical sound such as, Hey you!, Yo, Dude! Better yet "Ahhuuuga". If I don't know you are wanting to talk to me you don't get the secure comm link.

I hear everything at the same volume so i have to deliberately focus on individual groups of sound to follow a conversation etc.