It is very surprising for people that for me it is easier to write than to speak, mostly because with them is exactly the opposite. I can’t deny it has always intrigued me why while for most talking is easier than writing (which is the natural thing considering that talking is the primary way of communication, while writing, together with drawing, are more complex ways), for me talking (and understanding when people talk to me) is the most difficult.
While for many years I thought maybe my hearing wasn’t good enough, lately I’ve been surprised at the number of different small sounds I can hear, which brought me back to the question why. I believe I’ve found the answer in my actual job.
Since it is working in a factory assembly line in a clean room, there are all kind of loud noises coming from the machines at movement and the supply of running vacuum and compressed air, but also there is the smock, hood, boots, sleeves, gloves and safety glasses we have to wear, so together with the loud noises, the hood covering my ears deny me of a complete listening capability, so my understanding when other people talk has become a lot more difficult now (and for the past 4 years) than what used to be before at other works I’ve held in the past.
Because of the hood covering the ears, together with the loud noises, it wasn’t a surprise for me I couldn’t hear well, but what surprised me was that other people, including immigrant co-workers who have a poorer knowledge of the English Language than me can hear and understand a lot better than I can.
My only conclusion is that my hearing range could be different from the one other people might have. But this implies more than just not being able to understand easily what other people say!
If my hearing range is different than normal (because I am an Aspie), then that means I have learned the language in a different way than most people did, so when I hear a word pronounced I hear something completely different from what others hear, and that must have led me to learn the wrong pronunciation of every single word I know!
No wonder why few people can understand when I speak, and it is so difficult for me to understand when they speak!! And then no wonder why for me it’s easier to write than to speak; by being an Aspie and living in a more solitary way I would naturally tend to have more practice writing than speaking, but also by having more problems when verbally interacting, unconsciously I probably retrieved even more to the writing area rather than the speaking one, making even worst the whole situation!!
Now, it is not just a matter of applying myself harder to the speaking area in order to improve in it since if my conclusions are true, my hearing range will always keep me in a different spectrum of pronounced words understanding and my own pronunciation.
Although, there are solutions by the means of hearing tests and audio-phonology works (which right now are out of my reach because of the costs), I guess at this time of my life (being 52), my main interests have shifted and rather than trying to learn to participate in the world, I have come to desire more to retrieve to a corner of it, and dedicate myself to the delightful pleasures of writing my observations of the human race and its rather strange (for me) behavior.
So happiness is back in place, being the previous just a simple observation of an old time question in my mind of another among thousands of “why” floating in my ethereal (and Aspie) mind.
Raul
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