Hear We Go Again

A couple of weeks ago, my son, Newt, told us he couldn’t hear very well.  We had his hearing checked when he was around three, and he currently doesn’t seem to have any problems, but he’s mentioned something being wrong several times over the past few months (I won’t bore you with the details of why he hasn’t had another hearing test — please don’t call social services).  He certainly hears sounds just fine — he can memorize a tune after hearing it once.  But sometimes he doesn’t respond to you when he’s concentrating (just like his parents), and he says “What?” a lot after you tell him something — which is the one thing that’s concerned us the most.

I’m probably the person who watches Newt the closest, and I’ve always wondered how his mind interprets language.  He had a speech delay when he was younger, and we know that he’s had a more difficult time understanding words than the average kid.  Or at least we thought.  Sometimes he scares the bejesus out of us with tales of his “youth” that we really thought he didn’t remember and certainly didn’t think he understood (“There’s the Jamba Juice that we can’t ever go into again because I pooped in my pants when we were there, and you told me we were never going there again.  So I guess we’ll have to go to the other Jamba Juice.”).  Anyway, the one thing I have noticed over the years is that Newt does sometimes seem to have a hard time understanding what people say the first time around.  He gets this sort of blank, lost stare, and I can almost picture the wheels in his brain turning.  Or rather, the search engine in his brain scrambling around, trying to find the right link.  It’s like someone’s hit the pause button on him.  Or like the little rainbow circle is spinning, and you just need to wait for the information to download.

I’ve always figured Newt’s language issues were a lot like me learning a foreign language.  And for me, the best thing to do if I don’t understand something is to repeat the phrase exactly the same way it was said the first time.  Then I can just go over it again (and again and again) until I figure out all the little pieces.  So sometimes that’s what I’d do for Newt.  Other times, I’d mix things up, try to restructure a sentence, and explain something a different way.  But to be honest, I couldn’t ever get a good handle on what worked better.

But this morning, I think I finally got the bottom of the problem.  Newt crawled into bed with me, and we had a long discussion about his “hearing problem.”  From what I can understand, Newt has some sort of auditory processing problem.  Sometimes, when someone says something, part of it hits his ears and switches tracks in his brain.  The sentence ends up sounding ridiculous, and because he’s not an idiot, he catches the problem and says, “What?” (as in, “What the hell are you talking about?” not, “What, I didn’t hear you”).  For instance, if I say, “Newt, go get into the bathtub,” he might hear, “Newt, go get into the blender.”  The problem for Newt, of course, is that people might think he’s ignoring them, being obstinate, or not “getting it.”  Especially new people who don’t know him, like teachers or coaches.  Or obtuse people who do know him, like his parents. 

Interestingly, it doesn’t help for me to repeat, “Go get into the bathtub,” with the hope that the “blender” he hears will suddenly turn into “bathtub.”  Apparently it doesn’t.  But it does help to say, “Go take a bath.”  Because then the idea is presented in a completely different way.  So there goes my foreign language theory. . .

What amazes me is that the kid figured out all of this stuff on his own.  I can only imagine how much money I would’ve had to throw at some jackass psychologist to do a bunch of testing to come up with these results.  Amazing what can happen when you just ask.  And it’s amazing how many coping skills he’s already acquired at such an early age.  Because for the most part, he hides his problem really well.  It’s probably why he’s so good at learning by watching and copying other people’s movements — he’s had to pay such close attention to detail with the hope that he could glean some information from seeing another kid go first.  Or who knows.  Maybe he was good at that to begin with, and it turned out to be a lucky skill to have.

So now it looks like I’ll be doing research on auditory processing disorders.  Something I’ve already sort of looked into, probably out of gut instinct.  I’ve finally come to the conclusion (after being dragged there kicking and screaming) that with Newt, it’s all about him doing things on his own time line and me going by my intuition.  Some of our greatest failures have been when I pushed him to do something that he already knew he wasn’t ready to do or when I second guessed myself despite my better instincts.  What does work, however, is when I look at my son, see his strengths, and get over my own insecurities about whether or not he’s playing the right sports, making enough friends, or excelling in school.

What does work is when I take the time to really listen to Newt.  When I get the half hour explanation while we’re snuggled up together under the covers and not the thirty second remark at the breakfast table.  Because, as it turns out, he’s not the only one in the family who has to work hard to make sure he understands everything he hears.