APD Mishearings Can Sometimes Be Hilarious

Today I thought I would try to post something light-hearted and humorous. Living with a child who has Auditory Processing Disorder has it's moments of downright belly jiggling laughter.  You see although all children mishear things some of the time, because APD makes it difficult to process what is said, children and adults with APD can do it a lot of the time.  Sometimes the results are hilarious.

Sometimes, we keep the laughter to ourselves as there are emotions involved.  Sometimes, we go right ahead and laugh as our daughter herself finds them funny and can see the humor in it all; of course we take her cues before laughing. (I think it might have accidentally become a game as well because sometimes I find all the kids saying things to make people laugh as if they misunderstood something. We all play along and laugh at our funny misunderstandings.)

So here are a handful of misunderstandings by our child and others that we found funny:  

• We were watching the show “The Middle” on television.  The oldest son in the show is named Axel.  Our daughter turns to us and asks, “Why did they name their son Asshole?”

• We were driving in the late afternoon and I said, "Oh no, we are in rush hour!" I heard my daughter’s little worried voice reply, "We’re in Russia?"

• I told my son to go and brush your teeth.   He said very excitedly, "We are getting a tent?”

• I was looking in the fridge and asked my son, “What happened to the cheese?” He replied, “I’m wearing my jeans!”

• I was covering my nose with my hand and heading towards the bathroom.  My daughter asked, “Why are you hiding your nose?”  I answered, “My nose is running.”  She tilted her head and with wide, expressive eyes said, “I don’t think your nose looks funny.”

But on a more serious note, these little misunderstanding are just the tip of the iceberg for people with auditory processing disorder.  They are funny examples of how they mis-process words they hear all the time and have to try to make sense of very mixed up language.

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(I'm adding on to this article whenever I find more funny moments.  So below are ones that I've heard of since the original publication of this post.  Enjoy!)

• My daughter asked, "Why do those hobo witnesses keep coming to our door?"

• I was trying to retrieve the word insane asylum or sanitarium
  What I retrieved instead: Insane aquarium

• My with APD asked, "Mom, what is an alibi?" So I gave her a definition. Her response was, "Oh, I thought it was the song you sing to a baby"

• Funny APD Moment: I was very crabby this morning. My mom told me to beware of Negative E. My response is who is Negative E? Is that an evil Santa Claus or the Boogeyman, or maybe an evil Easter bunny? Apparently I was getting flustered, because my mom laughed and explained that she'd said "Negativity".

• My child with APD used to tell me she was so afraid of the potato. I couldn't figure it until she was watching the weather channel one day and showed me what she was talking about - tornado!

• Child with APD: "Fear my raft!"
  Mother:  "... what?" 
  
  Child with APD: "Fear my raft!" 
  Mother:  "OH! It's wrath! Fear my wrath. Watch my lips.. W-R-A-T-H."  
  Child with APD:  "OOOHHHH! That makes so much more sense!