Autism and Auditory Processing

Auditory processing disorders may be one of the most common to autism.

Struggles with communication are a hallmark of autism, and one of the diagnostic criteria that must be present for an autism diagnosis.


All my life I have been told I do not listen. I have been told and chastised over and over to “pay attention”.

I was punished in school and at home for not following directions, for not answering questions directed toward me, for asking questions for clarity and being told with frustration or anger,
” You should have listened when I was explaining that” or “I already covered that”.

I have been repeatedly tested for hearing and have a range of perception of sounds that is much higher and lower than average. I have really great hearing!

Here is the catch, though.
I may hear everything that goes on around me, I may hear every word spoken and my hearing may be acute with vivid clarity, but once I hear the sound, it may not be translated in my mind to information I can use.

I may only “get” the slightest idea of what the 10 minute lecture was about. I may only understand that somebody is very angry with me because I did not do, or did do something that they did not want me to do.

I may not know how to proceed with the next assignment, project, or workplace task because every sound I heard did not register in understandable form, if it registered at all.

I was told all through my childhood and young adulthood I had no excuse except laziness and deliberate insubordination for my failure to perform as expected.

If you find yourself being chastised over and over for not paying attention, for deliberately ignoring instructions or being lazy and undependable, consider being tested to see if you, too, might have disabilities surrounding auditory processing disorders.

Sensory processing disorders are proving to be hallmarks of autism.
Diagnosis is still through pinpointing certain behaviors, but more and more, science is seeing that our neurology and differences in the way we process sensory information is behind the “abnormal” clusters of behaviors that currently define autism in diagnostic tools.

Due to the fact that our neurology is unevenly developed, we may have processing disorders in any or all of the senses we use every day to bring us information about our world and help us understand how to act and react in any situation.

When we can not process the information our senses bring to us in “normal” ways, every thing we experience is affected.

More on sensory processing soon.