I had a little incident.  It occurred over the last 20 minutes.  I thought I would share the lesson I learned from it.  It's a lesson I've learned before.  A way of seeing the APD.  I just thought I would share my recent experience of it.

A week ago, a guy from one of my classes asked if he could make a copy of my notes.  He was gone for a few classes.  I told him sure.  I ended up scanning him the notes and e-mailing them to him.  They weren't actually my notes.  I have a note-taker in my classes.  They were her notes.  Anyway, he thought they were awesome notes.  I didn't say anything about them being a note-taker's because I thought the story would began and end there. It didn't.

Tonight I got an e-mail from another student in class.  He said he was told that I took awesome notes, and since he missed class this last Tuesday, he was wondering if, after class tomorrow, he could make a photocopy of Tuesday's notes.

If you look at my notes, you can tell they are from a note-taker. This guy that e-mailed me requesting the notes knows that I write in a notebook during class (don't ask - he just knows).  This is purely for concentration purpose on my part.  The notes I use are from the note-taker, and they are merely a copy of her notes.  There's no way to get around that.  I could claim a great many stories, but, unfortunately, I have a bit of a trouble lying, especially when word is getting around that I'm a good note-taker, and I know that I am not.  I would be taking credit for another's work.

And I could also tell the e-mail guy no, but I have a separate problem with that.  There is another separate issue, a sorid story about giving wrong impressions.  I won't get into that.

Anyway, I e-mailed the guy back.  I told him that they weren't my notes.  They were from a note-taker because I have a learning disability.

At that moment, I felt...disabled.  I know that people have it worse, and I shouldn't feel bad for what I have, but that didn't stop the way I was feeling.

The guy e-mailed me back.  He was nice about it and everything, but I still felt the way I felt.

And then I remembered.  I live in their world.  They don't live in my world.  I live in their world and have to adjust accordingly.  I am not disabled.  Just different.  As much as it is a curse, it is a blessing.

I lived in a different world for a year.  I am American, with American ways, American values, an American outlook, and an American way of life.  For one year, I lived in England.  My whole world changed with that one year.  Coming back to an American way of life hasn't been an
easy transition even though this is the world that I know and love. But even the transition has not hurt what I've come back with from England.  England jerked me out of my comfortable frame of mind and forced me to look at things - things I once thought I knew - in a completely different light.  It was like before I ever went to England, I could glance at a tree and see it's beauty.  Then when I came back from England, I glance at a tree, and it's more beautiful because I don't just see a tree, but I see a bird's nest and a squirrel inside it.  It wasn't England itself that allowed me to see that beauty.  It was the mere fact that England was not something I was use to.

England wasn't all beauty.  I missed my family.  I loved England. Don't get me wrong.  I want to return again and again, and there isn't a day that I don't go by thinking about it.  But there were times I missed home terribly and I even - though I hate to admit it - missed my American way of life.  But England gave me a gift - an ability to move outside a comfortable way to think.  It forced me to look at everything differently.  And it was beautiful.  And it still is beautiful. 

The APD - it's always been there though - but it allows me to see the bird's nest and the squirrel in the tree - the bird's nest and the squirrel that many others tend to miss.  Though England was never a curse, the APD can be at times.  I think everyone who has it can attest to that.  But the APD is not a disability, though it sure the hell feels like that a lot.  I just need to remember that those who yell and claim it's not a disability, those who turn a blind eye, those who won't accommodate for whatever reason - they can't see that bird's nest or that squirrel that makes that tree so utterly beautiful. 

And as much as I get angry at them, I have to pity them.  The world they see may be beautiful to them, but there is a whole other world
out there that they are missing out on, a world that makes what they see infinitely more beautiful.  A world that would astound them in it's complexity and make them laugh in its simplicity.  A world that would allow them to see that nest and that squirrel and the beauty beyond that tree.  It would give them a bone deep appreciation for what they can see because it would allow them to see that they truly can't see everything themselves.  Life isn't always beautiful.  You need to look for the moments that are and love them. 

Issues have more than one side.  Even the quietest, most seemingly-inconsequential people can look at an issue that's plagued the greatest minds in the world and in history and solve it with one sentence - if you would but listen.  Everyone has something going on in their heads, and unless you yourself have struggled with communicating your own thoughts with the world, you cannot easily appreciate the ability to communicate - from the simplest sentence to the most complex idea.  But you know the very importance of allowing it to happen if you struggle with it yourself.  Even if the communication amounts to nothing, it meant everything to the one who cannot normally communicate in the world that lives by a set of laws they cannot easily conform to. 

When you are forced to think about it in a different way - i.e. when you are forced to communicate in an auditory world when you struggle processing that very language - you are forced to take your own world and adjust it to the moment.  Not only that, but on a flip of a coin. That's when you step outside of your world, your busy world, to stop and enjoy the bird's nest and the squirrel.

Fortunately, there are "normal" people out there that can see the bird's nest and squirrel.  We appreciate those and love them.

But when it comes to something as simple as admitting "I have what you would call a learning disability" to someone who you don't if they can see the nest and the squirrel or not, we fear those who cannot see that nest and the squirrel.  They hurt us.  They make life hell.  But we can remember that we live outside a box they don't know how to leave.  And we can remember that we aren't the only ones.  And, fortunately, that box is becoming emptier and emptier. 

It's not a cure-all, but it's something to remember.

- Laura

Auditory Processing Disorder

APD is an information input error. A person with Auditory Processing Disorder can hear, but the brain does not process all of the signals that the ear sends to it correctly. This partial processing can affect the meaning of the entire message. The person with APD hears noise, not words, or words that are different from what was spoken. This problem occurs much more frequently with background noise or commotion, different sound combinations, talking over the telephone and conversing with people who speak with an accent. People who are unaware of APD, may feel that the person is not paying attention, or is not very bright. Speaking louder, explaining over and over, will not help the person with ADP process the sound, in fact, it can make it worse. The person with APD has poor short term auditory memory, poor rote memory, sequencing problems, can't sort background noise from speech and can have trouble accessing words. APD is for life; it does not go away and there is no cure. The person will develop coping strategies, but can easily forget them

Affects of APD:

• Trouble remembering information presented orally
• May shun groups of more than 2 or three people
• Problems carrying out multi step directions and needs to write many things down
• Has difficulty processing during background noise
• Needs more time to process information
• May have difficulty speaking - pronunciation, recalling words and keeping thoughts straight
• Have difficulty with reading, comprehension, spelling, and vocabulary
• Difficulty processing phone conversations, soft sounds and accents
• Misunderstands what is spoken or written - may not get jokes

Accommodations that may help:

• Quiet environment
• FM sound reproduction systems
• Demonstrations
• More time to process
• Recording devices
• Handouts
• One-at-a-time directions

Source: http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/voice/auditory.asp | http://www.infosheets.apduk.org/brief_description.htm | http://www.ldonline.org/ld_indepth/process_deficit/capd_paton.html