Autism?

[Cece87]

Hi,

I Wasn’t really sure which section to pop this in but here we go…
My mum, who is 60 has many things about her, we’ve never been especially close, but I’d love to get to the bottom of what is up with her.

One thing she does that particularly bothers is me is she doesn’t hear what people are saying to her, but not in a hearing problem way.

For example, last night on FaceTime my DS was jumping around telling her that he was a frog - she just couldn’t acknowledge what he was saying, she just kept waving and saying hiiii! In a way that you would to a baby. I asked her to acknowledge him 3x but she never did, she just answers “yeah” as if she’s agreeing with me.

Later I ask how my sister was as she’s seen her for lunch earlier in the day, she answered that she (my mum) wasn’t working today, “ok, but I asked how B was?” she then answered “yeah, I’m working on Thursday”.

This is just an example of many many many times this happened, I barely reach out to her because I get so frustrated to be honest.

We've suspected she maybe has autism and/or adhd. But would love to know if anyone has experience with something similar to this?

TIA!!

It depends if this behaviour is historical. Has she previously responded to your needs when you ask. It could be that she can't connect to the screen and needs to see you in person. I can't talk on the phone with any meaning and can't do online as I can't focus long enough on the words people are seeing as I'm so distracted by the visual of them. I have adhd and say 'what, pardon, eh' constantly in conversations so it drives everyone mad.

She’s also not elderly, HTH.

Hence me saying wasn’t sure where to pop the question!

Thanks for reply!

It happens in person too, there are many layers to her behaviour which I why is quite hard to explain. This bit just bugs me the most.
She’s quite bad socially, will often try and talk over people, she’s one of those people that drains you because she will tell you about how my dad left her, or how her friend died of cancer or something along those lines.

I’d drive 3.5 hours to visit her, walk through the door and be greeted with a huf and a “I’ve had to work 6 days in a row”

Think I’m just feeling sad at missing out on having a mum that I can talk to, especially now I have little ones!

Has she had her hearing checked recently? My DP's mother has hearing loss but refuses to wear hearing aids. When we ask her questions she sometimes replies with an unrelated comment. Very flustrating but she won't admit to not hearing properly.

Thank you,

I feel like it’s been going on too many years to be hearing related, and also with all of her other quirks, I feel like this just one of them.
But hearing definitely not to be ruled out!

She sounds similar to my dad who has hearing loss. His started gradually when he was in his early fifties and got worse and worse. He utterly refused any hearing tests insisting nothing was wrong. I think as it was subtle to begin with and gradually got worse, he didn't really notice until it was really quite severe and obvious even to him.

It really impacted on his social skills as he became very prone to lengthy monologues to compensate for the fact he couldn't hear anyone else. He can a bit Eeyore-like at the best of times so his one sided conversations were usually pretty gloomy.
He now has hearing aids and finds it so much easier to socialise. He's interacting a lot more and taking part in 2 way conversations in a way he couldn't before.

I suppose with your mum OP it will depend on whether this is a new behaviour for her and whether she's had any hearing screening tests done recently. It's worth a try if only to rule it out.

A few suggestions, as someone who has a similar mum!
First, it does sound very much like hearing issues. If she's always been like this she might have always had poor hearing and has just learned to compensate around it.
Second, my mum is useless on a video call. She's so distracted by what she can see that she isn't able to communicate well. Imagine for example, someone talking to you while you are watching TV. I find her much easier on a regular phone call, perhaps because that's what she grew up and lived with most of her life.
Third, does she live alone? Since my mum has been on her own her ability to communicate in a sociably expected way has really deteriorated. Although she does see people and do things, it's spending an increased amount of time alone that has done this I think. So like you, when I arrive at her house instead of "hello, how are you, nice to see you, etc" I instantly get "the cooker is broken again, my knees ache, I saw Jane this week". She's lost that ability to begin and maintain a conversation and instead it's just whatever she's thinking that comes out.

Is it possible that she's just not interested in what you have to say?
She sounds quite rude and dismissive, don't always leap to a label/diagnosis especially if she has always been like this.

Auditory processing delay. You hear but the words don't make sense for a while. For me, words don't make sense until my brain translates them into pictures for me. Yes, I am autistic. Diagnosed.

And yes. I've always been like this. Autism is something one is born with, it does not go away. It isn't contagious but it is inherited.

Oh, I'm deaf, too. Less than half normal hearing.

I’m deaf and I can be like that on video calls. That’s even with hearing aids because my hearing is pretty bad haha. Your Mum sounds really like she’s trying to mask not knowing what’s going on. As someone else said, maybe it’s auditory processing disorder. The more likely explanation is hearing issues. Maybe she’s had them all her life and not realised? It doesn’t just affect over 55s!

Sounds like hearing loss to me. It’s not like turning down the volume; different letter sounds become harder to hear and we try and work out what might have been said from context, knowledge, familiarity etc. It’s a form of masking and it can creep up on a person so that they’re not fully aware that they’re doing it.

dH is mid fifties and just got his checked - he’s a long way off a hearing aid but he’s missing some sounds in noisy environments, and I’ve noticed he mishears me sometimes on the phone.

And this is autism how?

This made me LOL - thanks!

This makes a lot of sense to me - she will often send me a message after talking about what we could have talked about in the call, as though her brain only processes it a bit later!

DH is on the waiting list for an ADHD assessment.

We think he has Auditory processing delay.He just doesn't process things.His hearing is fine;it's been tested multiple times.

Because part of autism can include difficulties with social interaction, language processing and subtleties in language that a non autistic person takes for granted...but I suspect you know that anyway, and you're fed up with autism being a catch all for any slight deviation from the norm?

Op your mum may or may not be autistic, there are plenty of people who are autistic without a diagnosis. But equally she may not be autistic and have an undiagnosed specific language processing disorder. She may have some hearing difficulties, there could be a myriad of reasons for the way she communicates, but apart from accepting she struggles with conventional communication, I'm not sure there is much you can do.

@timetofetgit autism is more than one aspect.... and I've meet a lot of old people like the OP is describing

I'm another one who thinks auditory processing difficulties might be an issue.

I'm autistic and take slightly longer than others to process speech (I discovered when everyone was wearing masks that I lip read a lot). I frequently miss parts of a conversation but am too embarrassed to ask people to repeat themselves over and over so either stay quiet or just fill in the blanks myself and then answer.

I also find video calls harder than face to face communication.

😂
Sorry, that would take too long to explain.

I agree with this. It's so tiresome the way that everyone seems to feel the need to have a diagnosis to excuse poor or different behaviour. Perhaps she's really not that interested in a young child jumping around pretending to be a frog on FaceTime, and if she was waving at him, presumably she was acknowledging him?

I would also take very great exception if someone described me as elderly at 60!

I'm AuDHD and i often don't hear what people are saying or that they are talking.

Some of your replies are tiresome! She adores her grandkids, thanks. There are many things over the years that have made me realise that my mum is not like others, I just hoped to put a name to this aspect of her behaviour.

As someone said, hearing loss is often frequency dependent, highest sounds first, so in speech you lose the s and t sounds. But you’re hearing everything else perfectly, and your brain is filling in the gaps, so you have no idea you’re deaf. If you notice anything (and this is after quite a lot of loss), you find people have a tendency to mumble.

Auditory processing delay. You hear but the words don't make sense for a while. For me, words don't make sense until my brain translates them into pictures for me. Yes, I am autistic. Diagnosed. Interesting! Seems in some ways like my deafness. I hear “words” but can’t understand them, wait to see if I can work them out in the context of what’s said next, and if I don’t manage, have to ask someone to repeat the whole sentence. So there’s a delay between hearing stuff and knowing what was said.

And sometimes I may ad-lib in the hope of catching up with the conversation later, and no doubt come out with utter rubbish sometimes