How is it that I can send my sweet girl of 13 over to a teen night at a friend's house full of happiness and hope and feeling good about herself only to pick her up in tears. This auditory processing disorder keeps making her social life so hard!
She has never handled group socializing very well because she simply cannot keep up with the quick processing needed to talk in a group. She can't "jump in" because she can't even decipher half the time what she is jumping into and by the time she does, the moment has passed and it is too late.
The last time, she came home telling me how a nice boy (the host of the party) told her she could get a drink. She said no thank you and was processing what to say to "keep the conversation going" (we've been working on conversational strategies), but she said he turned and walked away before she could get the words out of her mouth.
Another group problem for her with auditory processing disorder is the sheer noise of too many people talking at once. She says that she cannot even hear her own voice well and doesn't want to shout (shouting to her feels aggressive and she can't stand the sound of it when others do it and so certainly doesn't want to do it herself) but she thinks maybe people don't hear her because when she says hello or tries to speak to someone, she said they often ignore her like she's not even there.
So I keep scouring the internet for advice but always come up empty-handed. Her and I can practice good social skills all we want, but others do not follow the same plan and so it just doesn't work. Teenagers do not socialize according to proper manners or etiquette. Teenagers do not take on the responsibility of making sure everyone is included or wait for someone to process a response - they move on quickly to the next excitement beckoning them. This is normal for teenagerdome - and really most of human interactions in general.
So the teenager that cannot process auditory input or output quickly, who cannot decipher words among a cacophony of talking, and who already feels like all this auditory is difficult and stressful enough already...........well, that teenager has to find an alternative plan. We're working on it!
*** I'm sure Hailey would love to hear how other teenagers with auditory processing disorder (or adults who have lived through it) are coping socially in their lives. So if you have a story to share or some helpful advice or even just the pep talk of "It get's better", please share.
