Why is it difficult to process information?

Written on 19th Apr 2021 by Alex Lowery

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Sometimes I do have a hard time processing what people say to me. If someone gives a lot of detail when talking, I may have hard time remembering all that was said. I do struggle to process information.

I also sometimes struggle to hear what people say if they talk quietly. One example of this is when I was about 18 or 19, I gave a speech for school children with autism. At the end, one of the kids asked me a question and I struggled to understand it so I asked him to repeat it but this made him really stressed and anxious so the teacher ended up rephrasing the question.

The main reason why I bring this up is because of what happened after the talk. The same boy whispered a fairly long sentence into my my ear because he didn’t want anyone else to hear it. I struggle to hear things that are whispered and I also feel uncomfortable with this voice so close to my ear. As a result, I unfortunately really couldn’t make out what the boy was saying.

I literally had no idea how to respond. I could have asked him to repeat it but I was worried this would make him stressed again and he’d also likely whisper it in my ear again so I would struggle to hear it just as much as the first time. I had no idea how to manage the situation, so I just decided to nod and walk away, hoping it wasn’t a question that needed more detail.

To this day, I still don’t know if I did the right thing here or not. If it was a question that required more detail then this response was clearly awkward and not satisfactory. But at the same time, I literally had no idea what he said and I didn’t want to make him stressed by asking him to repeat it only to have it be a whisper again. So I legitimately don’t know and it was also so clear he didn’t want the teachers to hear it either so I honestly don’t know what I could have done differently.

This goes to show how much I really struggle to hear and process people talking quietly

Thank you for reading. Please let me know what you think I should have done in this circumstance.

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