I would recommend getting a hearing test and a listening needs assessment from a competent audiologist first. The clinician should ideally be competent in the area of auditory processing disorders or at least be able to screen for these.
Any recommendations a professional could make would depend on the results of such an assessment. Providing professional advice without such an assessment would be imprudent at least and unethical at worst.
So, I have a hearing test booked for 24th June (need for wax softening and removal causing the delay). Any suggestions as to how best to engage the audiologist about my auditory processing concerns? Especially if the test shows normal hearing of tones. One effect of my autism is that I often find it difficult to explain things verbally in face-to-face situations, so I’ll need to have a script ready.
So you do have an excessive earwax, as I previously assumed.
Advice? Inform about your autism and tell that condition makes you needy to have a planned written script.
Does the audiologist you are working with work in the area of APD on a regular basis?
Consider completing some questionnaires as a way of sharing information if your audiologist hasn’t sent some out in advance. The HHI-A below isn’t specific for APD but may highlight general difficulties that warrant further investigation if you have a “normal” puretone audiogram.
I thought I was autistic until I discovered that it was hyperacusis !!!
The best answer that I can give is: “Not certain, but I very much doubt it.” I will be going to The Hearing Clinic UK, which has a number of branches around Scotland and Northern England. Their website features a lot of photos of older people, so I’d assume that most of their clients have age-related issues. I live in a rural area, so options are limited. Going into details at this appointment may not be that important as I only want to check whether there is a “hardware” issue in addition to the suspected “software” problem, so that I can plan a way forward. If I did turn out to need HAs for amplification, I doubt that I would source them there anyway.
Thanks for the questionnaire though, it helps me to home in a list of categories.
If you click on Audiogram for various users here, you will see that we are all very different. So be wary of generalizations.
I have tried a home on-line hearing test with headphones and it matched my audiologist hearing test fairly closely. Based on the audiogram you uploaded, your hearing is not as bad as many of us. That means that a well-fitted aid will not amplify as much as it would for many of us. From that, you can conclude that the aid will not be giving you loud sounds that can damage your hearing, especially compared to some of us with much, much worse hearing.
Again assuming that your actual hearing profile matches your shown audiogram, a correctly fitted aid will mostly boost high frequencies. As others said, this will make clicks and other sharp sounds louder. There might be a few times where you find that disturbing, such as in a restaurant where people are constantly clacking forks on plates. Another disturbance will be having something in and/or on your ear.
In exchange for that, you will find it easier to understand people, especially those with high-pitched voices. In addition, your brain won’t be working as hard to figure out words, so you will have “more brain power” to think about the things people are saying. That would be a huge help in an academic lecture, where the speaker is discussing challenging material. Sorry if that’s badly worded, but it is a significant effect. As a side benefit, music will sound better.
In the USA, hearing aids are sold with a 30-day trial period. Ask if your provider also offers a satisfaction return policy, and ask about the specific timeframe and costs. But understand that it will take a few weeks for you to get used to an aid, so don’t jump to a conclusion after the first week.
Whatever you decide, as you move down this road, it would be nice if you could return to this discussion and let us know what you sense and what you decide.
Thank you so much for that video. Very relatable, although I’ve never liked large groups, restaurants, etc as my autism condition makes me non-social in those ways. My question would be: is hearing loss making me feel stressed in this kind of situation as described in the video, or is stress in social situations simply a result of autism, and that in itself causes my brain to cease processing perfectly good audio signals.? I’m interested in air accident investigations and I was reading a report just the other day, where a an aircraft was malfunctioning, the pilot was suddenly faced with several urgent audible (verbal) alarms at once, ignored them all and crashed the plane. The investigators decided that this was a result of load shedding by the brain in a stressful situation, and auditory processing was the first thing to be relinquished, so the alarms were not “heard”.
I guess all will become clearer on 24 June when I have a reliable audiogram.
Thanks for that very detailed response and I will certainly keep posting as things progress. That audiogram was the worse of two using the same app but different earphones. The other was around 20dB better across the board. Also, I had wax removal done today and that released significant quantities and gave a big improvement in what I sense, though I’m still not sure about the highest frequencies. Afterwards, I was chatting with a friend who said a word beginning with F (not that one!!) and I was aware that I missed the F. He was using a high pressure hose on his driveway at the time. I will be taking a pure tone hearing test on 24 June, which will certainly make the situation clearer. I’m in Scotland and the NHS will give me free hearing aids if I have hearing loss, the only downside being that the waiting list extends into October!
Both. Autism makes stressed also in people with perfect hearing, but hearing loss amplifies this a lot. There are neurotypical people who are very stressed in social situations with their hearing loss.
It’s a completely different mechanism. Alarms were still heard, but when there are a lot of them, over the line of effective focus, humans can’t process and analyze them all at once, so the focus moves to the seemingly most important actions.
You can check your audibility of “s” sound, which is around 6-8 kHz. In Phonak Target software there are samples of different sounds, like “s”, “sh”, “f”, etc.
Got a very basic hearing test done, posted audiogram update, though it is an approximation as the audiologist didn’t record the actual frequencies for the 4 tones used. End to end of a piano was his description. Well, the test was free! Word scores (not in noise) were 85% at 80dB and, strangely, 90-95% at 40dB. That may be explained because the 80dB test was done first and it took a few words to get used to the voice’s English (rather than Scots) accent. The verdict was: come back in 3 years. I’ll probably go to my NHS appointment whenever that comes through, just to get confirmation.
I think that from here I will experiment with AirPod Pro 2 for sound filtering in “busy” surroundings. Was told no danger of cognitive degradation from current level of hearing loss, phew!
Did they only do a 4 frequency screen? If so it was probably 500, 1000, 2000, 4000.
Thanks for that info, updated audiogram accordingly.
Yeah, interesting that they turned you away. I would consider trial hearing aids for that loss unless the patient was giving pretty strong “no” vibes.
OTC might be interesting, but is there a cheap OTC that offers a receiver in the ear and an open fit right now? Other people on the forum might know.
I was prepared to trust the recommendation since it was against their commercial interests, which would have been to sell me HAs or at least get me back in for a payable full diagnostic test. After the test I mentioned my concerns about auditory processing and autism – so no negative vibes there – but he just pointed to my good word recognition scores.
Perhaps the stress is from both hearing loss and autism? I just got hearing aids on June 20th, and I have noticed that better word perception seems to make my brain able to focus more quickly on the significance of what is being heard. I’ve had hearing loss to some extent since childhood, am almost 65 now, and also somewhere on the ASD spectrum.
I suspect the reason I can typically hear hushed/low volume voices is that my brain “listens” with more effort under those circumstances. I think it’s probably a safety
mechanism, in my case.
That’s interesting and in line with what I’ve been wondering. I’ve no idea how long I’ve had this current level of borderline hearing loss, for all I know it could have been all my life as I was never tested as a child AFAIK. I don’t like loud and try to avoid it, which might explain my better scores on quiet words. But I still think that I dropped a few words on the first test just because the accent briefly threw me.