ADHD and Selective Hearing

When Your ears are constantly picking up the sounds around you even when you aren’t actively listening then the Selective listening comes into the play  when you focus your attention on some specific information. Basically it involves consciously or unconsciously choosing to listen to what is relevant to you and ignore what isn’t. 

How does the Selective Listening Works

Your brain is constantly functioning to interpret what you see, smell, touch, feel, and hear. Many Research on how the brain responds to listening different sound has showed how selective listening works.‌

The auditory cortex is the part of the brain that processes the different sounds you hear and When you focus on a specific noise, it only responds to that sound. Even in a room full of competing noise, the neural response of your auditory cortex is only connected to what you selected to listen to and focus on.  Your brain can pick out certain tones, frequencies, and signals that it recognizes on its own to process further. You’ll find that in situations where you are surrounded by many noises, your auditory cortex will struggle to differentiate between different then our selective listening will suffer. For example, talking to someone with a deep, gruff voice at a monster truck rally could be difficult because the deep tones of the voice and the truck engines can be easily blended.  The complex work that your auditory cortex performs is what sets you apart from voice recognition technology. You can have a conversation with someone even in a noisy room, but your phone will have a difficult time picking out your voice among a mess of other sounds being produced. 

The Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a common disorder among the general population. It often appears during childhood, when selective listening skills are just started to develop. Its symptoms include hyperactivity, inability to pay attention, impulsive aggressive  behaviour. People with ADHD generally have trouble with selective listening.

Selective listening requires you to focus on one set of sounds Between the noise. If you have ADHD, your brain might face difficulty to tune out unimportant sounds, especially if you’re in a noisy environment. Still, research has proved that people with ADHD can improve their selective listening skills there is no formal diagnosis or treatment is available, but a specialist can help you.

 children with ADHD  have trouble screening out background noise, so they pick up bits of the every surrounding sounds. The echo in a gymnasium or the hum of the air conditioner in the classroom interferes with the conversation that’s important .for them It’s like listening to the radio with interference from different stations garbling the reception.

A child with the disorder typically tries very  hard to understand what’s being said that more likely he forgets parts of the conversation or doesn’t pick up on the nuances or subtleties of the words. 

A study conducted at the new York looked at the effects of Ritalin on auditory processing in children with  ADHD and has proved that people with ADHD can improve their selective listening skills there is no formal diagnosis or treatment is available, but a specialist can help you.

How to Improve Your Selective Listening 

If your brain is struggling to tune out unimportant sounds and focus on relevant noises, you can improve your selective listening skills with the following strategies:

Working With a Professional

This Treatment includes a wide range of exercises that target specific auditory deficits. Therapy can range from computer-assisted software programs like  Earobics to one-on-one training sessions with a speech and language therapist. 

How does it works: 

To overcome sound discrimination problem, a professional trains the child’s brain to differentiate mixed sounds  first in a quiet environment, then with  noisy  background .

To sharpen auditory memory, an audiologist uses sequencing routines such as having the child repeat a series of numbers and directions to exercise the listening to the muscle movement ”

To manage language-processing problems, a therapist trains and encourage a child to ask a teacher, adult, or peer to repeat or rephrase an instruction provided . 

For  School the Classroom accommodations can often include:

Seating a child in the front of the classroom, away from notorious students who might be disruptive, will  enhance a child’s ability to listen.

Asking a teacher to face a child while teaching , speak slowly, and use simple sentences when giving assignments can help an ADHD  student retain the information. 

Avoid noisy environments

When your ears are overwhelmed with many sounds at a time , it’s difficult to pick out the sounds that you want to pay attention to. 

Turn up the volume

Ask the person talking to you to talk a bit louder, turn up the volume when you’re listening to a podcast, or move closer to what you’re listening to. If the sound is loud enough, it will be easier to formulate   the information you need.

Try to Pay attention to one thing at a time

Avoid dividing your focus

 to many sounds if you’re already having trouble focusing one . If you’re watching a movie and listening to a friend at the same time, for example, pause one and give your full attention to the one which is your priority.