Lately I’ve noticed that my daughter with auditory
processing disorder does not like to hang out with people who talk non-stop. When
I asked her why she doesn’t enjoy the company of certain people, she explained
that she feels it takes too much energy to have to listen to all that talk and
never get to talk in return.
So not knowing the answers and wanting to understand
my daughter, I took some time to notice how it feels and what I do when I
encounter people who talk non-stop.
These are the people who talk a lot, talk fast and usually talk loud. They are the ones who tend to monopolize a
conversation and honestly I don’t think they do it to be unkind in any way; in
fact, I think for some people, it might be a way they deal with their need to
control a conversation.
I realized that what one has to do in the situation
of trying to converse with someone who talks non-stop, is to jump in on the
conversation when you notice a pause.
Moreover, if you want to talk about a certain subject that has been
brought up, you have to do this before the speaker moves on to another
topic. Of course this all happens in
fractions of seconds really, because you have to push your way in by speaking
up quickly and loudly when the speaker takes the most miniscule of pauses that
was probably just to take a breath.
Personally, I don’t enjoy that kind of conversation, but I have learned
to deal with it; I’ve learned the skills necessary to manage that interaction.
Then I had to think about how a person with auditory
processing disorder would manage that interaction. Can my daughter process what is being said
and what she wants to say quick enough to jump in to the tiniest of pauses and
make it flow relevantly? If I find that
difficult and tiring, how much more difficult and tiring is it for her?
Understandably, my daughter feels forever relegated
to the realm of listener in those situations.
She cannot process auditory input or output at a speed to be able to
force a mutual conversation with a non-stop talker. Like probably all human beings, she needs to
feel that her relationships and conversations are mutually respectful. For her, this means she needs her
conversation partners to take a pause sometimes, to ask for her input, and to
give her the space she needs to speak and feel heard.
