Friends Like Me: How Facebook United Kids with Auditory Processing Disorder

Friendship is born at that moment when one person 

says to another, "What! You too? I thought

 I was the only one!" by C. S. Lewis 

Good friends really do make such a difference in one's life.  A few months ago, some of the mothers in our Facebook support group for parents who have children with Auditory Processing Disorder (APD)* decided to get our children in contact with each other.  We live around the world, but a group of us all have girls around the same age with APD.  Inspired by a group of teenage girls we know who have APD and have expressed how much their friendships with each other have been so beneficial to them, we had our girls start writing to each other. Gradually they started to get to know each other and recently they started to Skype and text with one another. It has been fantastic!

If you've been following my posts on this blog, you will remember the post I wrote about Maslow's hierarchy of needs.  One of the important foundations for building self-esteem is to provide a sense of belonging.  Having a processing difference/learning disability can sometimes make fitting in with the other kids a difficult thing for our children.  Many a parent can tell you how our children regularly express the feelings of being singularly different and no one truly understanding what life is like for them.  So providing our girls with not only other people who have APD, but girls their own age who have APD, has provided them with a sense of belonging that goes beyond what any of us probably ever imagined.

So thank you Mark Zuckerberg for creating Facebook!  I know Mark never intended or even imagined that Facebook would be helpful to a group of children with Auditory Processing Disorder, but in an indirect way, it has connected people who would not have otherwise even met.  (Also thank you Niklas Zennstrom for creating Skype which connects our girls face-to-face.)

* The group is for both parents of children with APD and individuals themselves who have APD.  My post from February 27, 2012 has the names of these groups for anyone who is interested.