Why do we hear the lyrics wrong? Notes from an autistic person. Living with an Auditory Processing Disorder What Can Help?

An adult woman with autism spectrum disorder and ADHD talks about how to cope with life when you have difficulty understanding other people's spoken language.

Someone stops me in the university corridor. As I frantically try to figure out who this is, I hear the question: “Are you going to a fancy hair salon?” I'm perplexed for a while, and then it dawns on me that I'm thinking of other words, I ask the question to be repeated, but it still doesn't make any sense. Apparently, this is something important, I ask you to say it in other words, until it finally dawns on me. This is my classmate, and she asks: “Are you going to class on Friday?”

This kind of confusion with listening comprehension is a real problem. As a result, I answer the wrong questions, and sometimes my interlocutor and I don’t even realize that we are having a dialogue about two completely different subjects.

Although the other person knows what he means, I may understand something completely opposite. I can say that I understood everything perfectly, and none of us would even guess that we were “on different wavelengths.” The problem continues, and the interlocutor sees it not as a simple misunderstanding, but as further evidence that I am incapable of learning or coping with my responsibilities! This happens to me regularly, including to managers and bosses.

Sometimes I can't handle decoding phonemes, and during a normal conversation there will be sections: "Blah-blah-blah-blah-blah, unintelligible, blah-blah-blah." If I ask the other person to repeat what was said, I again hear: “Blah-blah-blah-blah-blah, unintelligible, blah-blah-blah.” It's like talking on a cell phone when there is interference with the connection and the signal periodically disappears. My mental subtitles, the transcript of the conversation I'm having in my head, are quite normal during the "blah blah blah" but once I get to "unintelligible" it's like the bottom line on a chart in an eye doctor's office - no matter how hard I try , it cannot be disassembled. I hate airport announcements because half the time I don't even understand what they say.

Due to various speech problems, I had my hearing tested several times. No matter where I live, someone is bound to ask about my “accent” (corrected speech disorder). However, my ears work just fine. I hear sounds that most people don't hear, such as changes in the tone of noise from hard drives or fans in hardware. I have been diagnosed with hyperacusis, excessive sensitivity to sounds, and tinnitus, a ringing in the ears that makes it even more difficult for me to hear speech.

For years, my family, teachers, counselors, and employers have complained that I don't understand what's going on around me, forget what they tell me, take things too literally, or simply ignore them. In class or during meetings, I do the best I can. I sit on the first desk, I read about the subject in advance, I watch what the lecturer says. Still, I am distracted by the noise of the air conditioner, the radiator, the flickering lamp and the projector, and I have difficulty understanding what is being said, even if the lecturer is standing only a couple of meters away from me. Sometimes I ask to speak louder, but the real problem is not the volume at all. I find it difficult to separate the sounds of voices from extraneous noise, in addition, my mental decoding of other people's words with all the new terms takes a lot of time, plus it takes me twice as long to understand what exactly was said and what it means in in this context. Very often I cannot understand what is being said if several people are talking. I'm trying to make audio recordings of lectures, but, to be honest, it doesn't become clearer the second time.

Until I started watching movies and TV shows with subtitles, I didn't even realize how much dialogue I misunderstood. It was only recently, when I tried watching TV again without subtitles, that I realized how difficult it is for me to understand the dialogue and how much I have to strain my attention all the time. I find it especially difficult to talk on the phone when I can't see the person I'm talking to. I hate checking my voicemail because I have to listen to the same crumpled message three or four times to understand the dictated phone number! It's much easier with text messages.

It is very difficult to prevent such problems in school or in future work. So I need to somehow explain to people that I can have perfect pitch, but still not understand what they are saying, and that does not make me rude, indifferent, lazy or stupid. These difficulties cannot be solved by simply “trying harder.” According to the results of the hearing test, I hear just fine. Auditory processing disorder (sometimes called central auditory processing disorder) is difficult to diagnose with standard hearing tests. Once I found a specialist in this field, the results were very revealing, and this information helped both me and my employers.

The following is an excerpt from my letter to educators and employers describing what auditory processing disorder is, how it affects me, and how I cope with it. This is a little known issue, so I am providing this excerpt to make it easier for people to understand.

Auditory processing disorder is an invisible disability, a developmental feature that makes it difficult to perceive speech by ear. Although I have excellent hearing, from time to time I have problems perceiving and deciphering other people's speech. This problem is similar to a bad connection on a mobile phone, when the sound disappears every now and then. My difficulties are further complicated by tinnitus (the sensation of “ringing in the ears”), which further increases “background noise.”

Testing with a licensed audiologist showed that in complete silence, my speech perception (understanding of spoken words) was 80% in the left ear and 86% in the right ear. In noisy environments (such as appliances and other people's voices), my speech understanding drops to 68% in the left ear and 52% in the right ear.

How does this affect me

You can imagine how difficult it is to follow a conversation or understand a lecture when I literally only understand half of what is being said. I have to rely on context to figure out what other people mean. I put in extra mental effort to decipher new terms and concepts, and I also spend twice as much time trying to remember what was said while I was trying to understand one word. Constant transcribing fills my working memory. Because of this, I often take words literally because I can't pay attention to the context. Very often I ask questions or make comments during lectures or meetings just to confirm that I heard everything correctly.

My working and short-term memory is spent on perceiving speech, and not on remembering what I heard. As a result, I can leave a class without the slightest idea what it was about because I don't have enough short-term memory for it. I need to read the notes to understand the lecture material.

I have difficulty understanding verbal instructions. I have difficulty understanding, remembering, and following a series of verbal instructions. For example, these could be directions on how to get to a certain place, how to operate equipment, or even descriptions of steps in calculations. I may also confuse similar-sounding numbers, such as “five” and “nine” or “sixteen” and “sixty.”

I may have difficulty distinguishing between voices and background noise. In a situation where several people are speaking at once, it is especially difficult for me, because different voices and extraneous noises merge together. This applies not only to restaurants and conferences, but also to conversations in the office, hallways and classes when “small group discussions” begin.

For me, in almost any environment there will be mechanical noises that others cannot hear. I hear high frequency sounds that most other people can't hear. Window air conditioners, radiators, projector fans, computer hard drives, and fluorescent lights all combine to create a very noisy environment for me. Hyperacusis, a medical condition that causes increased sensitivity to sound, heightens my perception of high-frequency sounds.

What can help

Because I deal with this disorder every day, I have developed a number of strategies to compensate. Below are a few strategies that can make our communication easier. However, each of these strategies is only partially successful, and my ability to compensate for this problem is reduced if I am tired or sick.

— It will be better if I can get a plan for a lecture or class in advance, an hour or the day before. This will help me work with new concepts and prepare for new terms.

- Let me sit on the first desk and away from any working devices. I'm a bit of a lip reader, so it's important for me to be able to see the speaker clearly.

— If the room temperature allows it, I would be grateful for closed windows and doors, as this reduces street and other noise.

— If possible, use subtitles while showing the video.

- It is better to provide assignments and other important information in writing - via email and so on. If you need to instruct me, please do so in writing, for example via email.

— Allow me to use the recorder during meetings, individual conversations and classes.

— If it is permissible, allow me to use a personal training device, especially during classes in large rooms. It consists of headphones for me and a wireless microphone for the speaker. It transmits information directly to my headphones, eliminating all extraneous noise. A personal teaching device such as an FM system can help me during lectures in large halls.

Many people mistakenly think that auditory processing disorder is the same as hearing loss and try to speak louder or repeat what they have already said. However, it is better not to repeat it, but paraphrase your words.

Auditory Processing Disorder is a frustrating disorder that is rarely treated with understanding. It cannot be cured. I have lived with it all my life, and it was important for me to learn that this is a real disorder with its own name. This allowed me to learn more about him and find ways to improve my communication with others.

Please understand that my difficulty speaking has nothing to do with my motivation or ability to study and work. It’s just important for me that others understand that I’m not rude, indifferent, lazy or stupid.

We hope you find the information on our website useful or interesting. You can support people with autism in Russia and contribute to the work of the Foundation by clicking on.

Recently, while humming a foreign song in the kitchen, I caught myself thinking that I was coming out with some kind of gibberish instead of real words, although I had heard this song hundreds of times and knew it by heart. I wondered why our brain “throws out” such tricks? After all, very often we misinterpret or hear the words of our favorite songs from childhood incorrectly, although, in theory, we should know them by heart. As it turned out, such a phenomenon is not uncommon and even has a special name. Mondegrin phenomenon.

To begin with, I suggest that you familiarize yourself with interesting material on this issue in the New Yorker magazine. The author of the article, Maria Konnikova, discusses the topic of our brain’s perception of other people’s speech using the example of popular songs. Briefly, the gist is this:

1. We all sometimes become “victims” of the Mondegrin phenomenon, when we haven’t fully heard the words of a song, and the brain, working like autocorrect in a mobile phone, simply comes up with phrases that we don’t hear, substituting the closest-sounding words or more logical ones into our view.

2. Mondegrin is a misheard word, in other words. That is, a word incorrectly perceived by ear, which is replaced by the brain with something more logical or similar in sound/meaning.
3. Most often, mondegrins are invented by children, whose vocabulary is very limited due to age. Example: often children sing “beautiful Ikukku” instead of “the beauty and the cup” from the musketeers’ song.

4. The term “Mondegrin” was first coined by the American writer Sylvia Wright in 1954, recalling her mishearings from childhood, and using this word to name a fictional character in her book - the mysterious Lady Mondegrin, who mixed up words.

5. The Mondegrin phenomenon is directly related to the two-phase process of speech processing. The brain works like this: sound waves through the auditory canals enter the temporal part of the brain, where the area responsible for the perception and interpretation of audio information is located. Here the brain analyzes and interprets the meaning of the received signal. Mondegrins are formed when a “failure” occurs at the stage between perception and comprehension. As a rule, the “failure” is caused by additional sound interference. For example, I was cooking in the kitchen, listening to the radio, which was drowned out by the sounds of the stove and electrical appliances. Mondegrins almost never occur when we watch a video clip and see the singer’s face, then the visual image will help us accurately determine the audio information.

6. Mondegrins also occur if we don’t know the language of the song well, or if we hear an accent for the first time. It often happens that musicians incorrectly place logical stresses to increase poetry in a song. Moreover, many words are simply very similar in phonemes, that is, they sound the same, differing only in stress.

7. The most famous mondegrins:

• many Jimi Hendrix fans have heard the line "Excuse me while I kiss this guy", although the original was "Excuse me while I kiss the sky" ("Purple Haze");
• due to the incorrect perception by the French of the Russian word “quickly”, the term “bistrot” appeared;
• Mondegrin of the French word “an ekename” (translated as “additional name”) became the reason for the appearance of Amer. slang word "nickname".

To understand that the Mondegrin phenomenon is a very common phenomenon, I suggest that you familiarize yourself with funny video compilation foreign songs, where words are most often heard that are not there:

If you hear, but don’t understand the words, this is not a death sentence and we can help you

Human speech (words, letters) consists of low, medium and high frequencies. For example, hissing letters “sh, s, f, etc.”, as well as whispered speech are high-frequency sounds, mid-frequency sounds are “a, p, i, r, etc.”, low-frequency sounds are “e” , in, m, etc.”

When a person does not hear, for example, high-frequency sounds for several years, the brain “erases” these sounds from memory and the person ceases to understand words. He can hear part of the word, for example low-frequency sounds, but not part. To force the brain to remember how words sound at all frequencies, it is necessary that they reach the neurons of the brain through the eardrum, auditory ossicles, auditory receptors, auditory strings, that is, the sounds need to be amplified. This can be done with the help of a hearing aid. But the hearing aid must be selected and adjusted by a frequency specialist based on hearing audiometry data. In severe cases, with an advanced form, a person may not be able to understand words at first, even with a hearing aid.

To restore the intelligibility of audible speech, training is necessary, training in the type of teaching children to understand speech. The patient must read the words and listen to their pronunciation at the same time. In this case, it is necessary to additionally look at the lips of the speaking interlocutor.

Write down the learned words and sentences in a notebook and repeat them every other day.

Restoring the intelligibility of audible speech - in some cases this

long and hard work. To get a positive result faster, it is necessary to use not one, but two hearing aids for both ears with computer frequency tuning. The more modern the hearing aid, the faster the intelligibility of audible speech will be restored. Such hearing aids include devices from Siemens, Unitron, Oticon, Beltone, Widex, Starce, Bernafon, Audio Servise, Phonak and others, most of which can be purchased in the offices of the Euroton hearing center.

Below is the note in full.

While listening to music, our brain acts as an autocorrect iPhone- and brings no less problems. Thanks to the peculiarities of perception, we hear words incorrectly, and the meaning of songs is distorted.

Look At Me provides a summary of the arguments of Maria Konnikova from The New Yorker to figure out why this happens.

Each of us has encountered the phenomenon Mondegrina: when we haven’t fully heard the words of a song, our brain comes up with phrases that are appropriate in meaning and sound, sometimes completely changing the meaning of the original text. Mondegrin, or mishearing, is any misheard word or phrase that seems logical and appropriate to us, but does not coincide with the original.

Often Mondegrins come up with children: for example, many heard in the song of the musketeers from the film the line about “the beautiful Ikukka” together with “the beauty and the cup”, and misheard songs in foreign languages ​​(remember “ rockamacathon") and there is no number at all.

Concept Mondegrina appeared in 1954 thanks to the popular story of the American writer Sylvia Wright about an incident from her childhood. When little Sylvia was read aloud verses from an ancient collection of poems and ballads " Reliques of Ancient English Poetry“, instead of the line “And laid him on the green” (“And they laid him on the green grass”), she always heard “ And Lady Mondegreen"("And Lady Mondegrin").

Although Sylvia’s imagination formed a realistic image of the noble Lady Mondegrin, in fact, the hero of the poem met his death completely alone.

Thus, thanks to the mysterious Lady Mondegrin, who never existed, the world received a euphonious name for “misheard rumors.”

Phenomenon Mondegrina associated with a two-stage process of processing audio information. First, sound waves travel through the ear to the temporal lobe of the brain, where the region responsible for the perception of sound information is located. After this, the process of understanding the perceived sound begins: the brain determines what exactly we are hearing - a car siren, birdsong or speech. Mondegrins occur when there is a breakdown between the perception and comprehension of audio information: you hear the same audio signal as everyone else, but your brain interprets it differently.

Why is this crash happening? The simplest explanation is that we cannot count words correctly due to noise and lack of visual contact with the sound source, for example, when listening to the radio or talking on the phone. The words of a song are, in principle, harder to hear than ordinary speech, because we have to separate the text from the music, and most often at this time we do not see the singer’s face, which can serve as a clue. Difficulties in perception are also caused by unusual accents or the structure of speech: for example, in poems, where the construction of a phrase differs from a conversation, and logical stresses are shifted. Uncertainty arises, which our brain tries to resolve, and this is not always successful.

Although we almost never pause when speaking our native language, You can learn a foreign language only by isolating individual words from the stream of speech.. Intonation features help us with this - in different languages, intonation can rise or fall towards the end of a phrase, as well as familiar-sounding syllables characteristic of a particular part of speech. Scientists are studying the process of learning a new language by analyzing the mistakes made in speech by young children who have just begun to speak. Similar mistakes are made by people who find themselves in a new language environment.

Speech disorders are quite common in the modern world, both in adults and children. For the correct functioning of speech, in addition to the absence of problems in the vocal apparatus itself, the coordinated work of visual and auditory analyzers, the brain and other parts of the nervous system is necessary.

A speech disorder is a disorder of speech skills that can be caused by various reasons. Let's look at the most common diseases:

Stuttering

Stuttering, or logoneurosis, is one of the most common deviations. This disorder is expressed in the periodic repetition of individual syllables or sounds during a conversation. In addition, convulsive pauses may occur in a person’s speech.

There are several types of stuttering:

• Tonic appearance – frequent stops in speech and prolongation of words.
• Clonic - repetition of syllables and sounds.

Stuttering can be triggered and aggravated by stress, emotional situations and shocks, such as speaking in front of a large number of people.

Logoneurosis occurs in adults and children. The causes of its occurrence may be neurological and genetic factors. With timely diagnosis and initiation of treatment, it is possible to completely get rid of this problem. There are many treatment methods - both medical (physiotherapeutic, speech therapy, medication, psychotherapeutic) and traditional medicine.

A disease characterized by slurred speech and problems articulating sounds. Appears due to disorders in the central nervous system.

One of the characteristic features of this disease is reduced mobility of the speech apparatus - lips, tongue, soft palate, which complicates articulation and is due to insufficient innervation of the speech apparatus (the presence of nerve endings in tissues and organs, which ensures communication with the central nervous system).

Types of violation:

• Erased dysarthria is not a very pronounced disease. The person does not have problems with hearing and speech apparatus, but has difficulties in sound pronunciation.
• Severe dysarthria - characterized by incomprehensible, slurred speech, disturbances in intonation, breathing, and voice.
• Anarthria is a form of disease in which a person is unable to speak clearly.

This disorder requires complex treatment: speech therapy correction, drug intervention, physical therapy.

Dislalia

Tongue-tied is a disease in which a person pronounces certain sounds incorrectly, misses them, or replaces them with others. This disorder usually occurs in people with normal hearing and innervation of the articulatory apparatus. Typically, treatment is carried out with speech therapy intervention.

This is one of the most common speech disorders, which is found in about 25% of preschool children. With timely diagnosis, the disorder can be corrected quite successfully. Preschool children perceive correction much more easily than schoolchildren.

A condition that often occurs in people who have had an epileptic seizure. Characterized by poor vocabulary or simplified sentence construction.

Oligophasia can be:

• Temporary – acute oligophasia caused by an epileptic seizure;
• Progressive - interictal oligophasia, which occurs with the development of epileptic dementia.

The disease can also occur with disorders in the frontal lobe of the brain and some mental disorders.

Aphasia

A speech disorder in which a person cannot understand someone else’s speech and express his own thoughts using words and phrases. The disorder occurs when the centers responsible for speech are damaged in the cerebral cortex, namely, in the dominant hemisphere.

The cause of the disease can be:

• cerebral hemorrhage;
• abscess;
• traumatic brain injury;
• thrombosis of cerebral vessels.

There are several categories of this violation:

• – a person is not able to pronounce words, but can make sounds and understand someone else’s speech.
• Sensory aphasia - a person can speak, but cannot understand someone else's speech.
• Semantic aphasia – a person’s speech is not impaired and he is able to hear, but cannot understand the semantic relationships between words.
• Amnestic aphasia is a disease in which a person forgets the name of an object, but is able to describe its function and purpose.
• Total aphasia - a person is unable to speak, write, read or understand the speech of another.

Since aphasia is not a mental disorder, to treat it it is necessary to eliminate the cause of the disease.

Akatophasia

A speech disorder, which is characterized by the replacement of necessary words with words that are similar in sound, but not suitable in meaning.

Schizophasia

A psychiatric speech disorder characterized by speech fragmentation and incorrect semantic structure of speech. A person is able to form phrases, but his speech does not make any sense, it is nonsense. This disorder is most common in patients with schizophrenia.

Paraphasia

A speech disorder in which a person confuses individual letters or words and replaces them with the wrong ones.

There are two types of violation:

• Verbal - replacing words that are similar in meaning.
• Literal – caused by sensory or motor speech problems.

A developmental disorder in children in which there are deficiencies in the use of expressive means of speech. At the same time, children are able to express thoughts and understand the meaning of someone else's speech.

Symptoms of this disorder also include:

• small vocabulary;
• grammatical errors - incorrect use of declensions and cases;
• low speech activity.

This disorder can be transmitted at the genetic level, and is more common in men. Diagnosed during examination by a speech therapist, psychologist or neurologist. For treatment, psychotherapeutic methods are mainly used; in some situations, drug treatment is prescribed.

Logoclony

A disease expressed in the periodic repetition of syllables or individual words.

This disorder is provoked by problems with contraction of the muscles that are involved in the speech process. Muscle spasms are repeated one after another due to deviations in the rhythm of contractions. This disease can accompany Alzheimer's disease, progressive paralysis, and encephalitis.

Most speech disorders can be corrected and treated if detected early. Be attentive to your health and contact a specialist if you notice any deviations.

Treatment of speech disorder