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When I got tested for learning disabilities, I had one score that fell far, far below all the rest of them. My score in this category was 55 (an average score is 100 + 15). The category? Auditory Processing.

When most people are in a "loud" scenario with a lot of different noises, like a crowded party, they can pick one sound - like a person talking to them - and effectively tune out everything else so they can properly hear the one sound. I can't do that. I hear everything, all the time, and I have a very difficult time separating sounds and hearing them properly.

It's not a problem with hearing necessarily - I can hear the sound itself fine - I just can't process the sound and distinguish it from the other sounds around it. Because of this, I find it important to look at people's faces when I speak to them, so that whatever I can't hear correctly I can determine from reading their lips. I am also very easily agitated by repetitive sounds, because unlike a normal person I can't just tune it out. Some soft "white noises" I can get used to, like the sound of a fan or an air conditioner, but others literally make me want to break whatever is making the sound so I don't have to hear it anymore (for instance, some idiot sitting in a car not wearing their seatbelt).

I have no idea if this sound processing deficit is related to the dyscalculia or not. I do know that it impacts my dyscalculia in a classroom setting, because I already can't always hear what the professor is saying, and I can't even make an educated guess with it comes to numbers (versus in other contexts).

This is probably just a quirk of mine, but I also have a very sensitive sense of smell. Most of the time it is inhibited by my allergies (which is actually a good thing) but during the two months out of the year when my allergies aren't acting up, I will be nauseous several times a day due to strong smells wafting by. Even WITH my stopped up sinuses, sometimes at work I will have to excuse myself because a customer's perfume or food or even the air freshener we use in the bathroom will just make me sick from the smell. My friends make fun of me for my "pregnant lady sense of smell" all the time.