That's a very interesting question, I believe I can hear okay and am very sensitive to certain sounds, but I often don't seem to process what I hear, E.g. a friend will talk and amongst other noises I don't always process what he says and he then accuses me of not listening, or being deaf, this happens a lot and I also get told I ignore people as I don't always automatically pick up that someone is talking to me or immediately process what they're saying. I am also not able to control the level of my voice, often being told that I am shouting when to myself I sound perfectly normal, but again this is a common aspie trait even though again some people say I might have hearing difficulties.
It's difficult to say whether you actually have a physical hearing issue (E.g. a problem with your ears) and since you can actually hear these frequencies without a hearing aid I'm really not sure. I'm certainly not qualified or experienced enough to make any sort of medical assessment, but it's very possible that at least some of your hearing issues are related to your brain not processing the sounds as easily and quickly as an average NT person whether you have an actual issue with your ears or not. Perhaps you could seek a second professional opinion and I'd be really interested to hear any future updates. Best of luck!
Update: I've just had another thought. If you were given a hearing aid that simply amplified all sound you would expect it to be useless in helping aspies who can physically hear properly, but have issues processing sounds, however does this mean that hearing aids can never help in this situation? Well I'm open minded and perhaps a specialist hearing aid that enhances certain sounds or frequencies could help, E.g. it could enhance dialogue while attempting to reduce other noises. In other words, even if you don't have a physical hearing problem, your specialised hearing aid may possibly still help.
Great post!
I share some of the same issues as you. Often, after someone says "What?", I observe myself responding in a manner that might be taken passive-aggressively. I raise my voice and almost feel like I am yelling at them. I actually feel myself wincing at the increased sound and horrible tone of my voice when this happens.
I hate that situation. I cannot appropriately hit that sweet spot--like NT people can do so easily. In the past, the opposite happened. I would get a "what?" I would try hard to raise the volume of my voice, repeating what I said, and would get another what, etc, etc, until my head felt like it was going to explode. Now I repeat myself once and wince(damned-if-you-do...).
Your thoughts on the hearing aid are interesting. NT people may naturally gravitate towards people/social sounds out of a cacophony of environmental sounds--much more easily than AS people. The hearing is the same, but NT people's brains can focus on the people sounds and understand them easier. That could be wiring, chemistry, genes, etc.
However, if a NT person is a social butterfly and thrives off gossip and small talk, they get a lot of positive reinforcement from listening to other people, they may learn to unconsciously scan their environment for opportunities those sounds--and positive reinforcement. On the other hand, an AS person might actually have more negative experiences trying to engage in conversation with other people. So the AS person may be actively avoiding those negative experiences. The learning parts of both the NT and AS person might be function correctly by producing opposite results! (unfortunately my brain cannot distinguish if that voice is gossip or another nurse telling me that my patient just stopped breathing.)
I know that when someone trys to get my attention in the ER, the first things they say is usually buried in the ambient noise and I can only make out half of their first remarks(if I hear them at all).
To your last excellent point--I agree. Many hearing aids can actually increase the volume of the specific sound frequencies of human voice--which would raise the voice above the background sounds. This might even help AS people with "normal hearing!" Maybe if a hearing aid made the sound of human voices 20% louder than ambient noise, it would make up for my decreased ability to pick the human voice out of ambient noise!
One last point, I want my co-workers to like and respect me. I feel like my hearing issues make me come off as passive-aggressive at times. I hate that so much. But I am passing at work so I have to live with that. Perhaps that is one strong advantage of coming out.
SteveH
