You don't have a learning dissablity...you can read

I want to start this blog off with two questions. How many times do you hear people talking about Learning dissablities and hear them talking about Dyslexia? In saying that, how many times do you hear people talking about learning dissablities and talking about APD?

While I am glad to see that dyslexia has a lot of media attention and advertisement; It saddens me that so many people think dyslexia when they think learning disorder and yet not many think APD.

Despite the fact that Hollywood sometimes tends to give a wrong impression about dyslexia and dosen't really show the audiences what it really is, atleast the name is out there. So many times I have been talking to people and they have no idea what APD is. Often times when I would say I had a learning disablity growing up I would get one very common response of "You can read, so you can't have a learning dissablity".

Why is it that our society INSTANTLY connects learning dissablites with the ability to read? Then the next thing they look for is writing. However, if a child has APD and mis-heard something or didn't quite comprehend what it was that was being said they are either A) slow and stupid (In my case I was called 'blonde' because of it) or B) They have a 'hearing' issue.

Well, I will be the very first to tell you that this isn't true! learning dissablities like people come in all different forms; shapes and sizes if you will. They come in different weaknesses and strengths and they come in different areas whether it be visual or auditory. 

Another popular one I get, after I breifly explain APD (in a nut shell) they ask well "why do you suffer with other things if its a hearing thing". Because its called auditory processing disorder, and because the main major issue is the weakness of processing sounds in the brain to simplify it people just call it a hearing thing which also narrow minds them to everything it really is.

From what I have been able to learn and gather, learning dissablities are all connected. They start with visual and auditory and then under each category there are a bunch of different branches of different dissablities but sometimes they connect to one another; sometimes the auditory and visual issues cross paths.

So, in saying all this, I hope that in the future things will be different. I hope to be able to go into youtube and find tons of videos on auditory processing disorder just like you can dyslexia. I hope to see a Hollywood film, or even a non-hollywood film where the character has APD and not dyslexia. I hope that with each new year, more and more people know and understand APD. However, in order for there to be change we have to start it. I have learned that if you want something done, you have to do it yourself or you can't expect anything to be done differently. So, as for myself I am going to continue this blog and in this new year I have added to my list of things to work with other people with APD; teen friends of mine whom I have met online along with parents and put together a short film, so there will be one more film out there which makes it one film closer to the amount thats out there about dyslexia.

Although I am happy that dyslexia has such a well-known title in our society and am happy for all the people with dyslexia that when they tell people thats what they have; most people know; however, I hope to see that change with APD. As the title of my blog says I want to break the silence of this silent dissablity but I can't do it alone so I challenge all of you my readers to help me break this silence!


-apdteen23