Hearing test when I was 3 years old. They discovered I was deaf in my right ear. I had many of the “symptoms” of autism: late/minimal talker, preferred solitary pursuits like puzzles, occasional vocal outbursts (due to frustration of lack of ability to communicate), not wanting to share/communicate with other children (probably because I couldn’t hear their soft delicate voices and it was too much work to try).
The real problem was since I couldn’t hear well and communicate well, I simply retreated. Once they realized the real problem, everyone around me made more of an effort to speak clearly and a bit louder. I also had some speech therapy thrown in and caught up very quickly so by the time I was in kindergarten, I was in classes with regular children and by second grade (and losing my 2 front teeth) were over, my speech was fine, too.
Do I still have issues? Sure. I still hate social situations with large crowds of people. Trying to concentrate on conversing with tons of background noise is tiring and I just prefer to avoid such situations. Lipreading only takes you so far and is mentally draining.
So....by the standard of some of these “autism spectrum” experts, I’m still “autistic” because social situations exhaust me mentally because it’s takes a lot out of me mentally to make sure I hear the conversation.
No your a Vestibular patient. With it comes Cognitive Behavioral issues both in kids and adults as well. They didn't know that till very recently. Believe me I know. Only one doctor I can think of make the connection and he was scoffed at as being a quack for a long time.
Vestibular disorders or issues create a wide variety of other problems that go with it including even Dyslexic type symptoms. You can thank Dr Harold Levinson a research Neurologist for making one of the fisrt links in this. He atributes this to being a major cause of the growing Anxiety Disorders in adults.
Today Vestibular research has validate a lot of his 1970 era theories. My Vestibular issues had me labeled ADD ADHD. It wasn't because they were pushing Ritalin as this was in the 1960's. It was because reseach had not yet produced any answers. BTW I'm also single eye functional with two eye vision and very few eye doctors catch it till I tell them. I got a double sensory dose of it. Thankfully I got help early and was taught skills to live with it til it got so bad I could no longer work. Try this link a good one IMO. COGNITIVE ASPECTS OF VESTIBULAR DISORDERS
very interesting - thanks for sharing.
Sounds very similar to what we are going through with our son.
“So....by the standard of some of these “autism spectrum” experts, I’m still “autistic” because social situations exhaust me mentally because it’s takes a lot out of me mentally to make sure I hear the conversation.”
Is this what they told you? That you are on the spectrum?
From what I learned (when my son was tested) that when the problem is traced to a hearing issue, they rule out autism.
I was never given the impression that social issues related to hearing difficulty is considered an autistic trait.