Auditory Memory
We’re going to discuss auditory memory that one has because of having NLD. Megan talks about her auditory gift in “NVLD And Embracing My Sixth Sense: Auditory Memory.” She is a graduate of the Child & Youth Worker program from Cambrian College and I’m pursuing my degree in Disability Studies at Ryerson University along with a certificate in Aboriginal pieces of knowledge & Experiences. I am a Project Social Ambassador for The NVLD Project.”
“You’ve heard of the sixth sense, right? I’d like to think of my NVLD as giving me a similar sense, the gift of auditory memory. I’m not sure when I discovered my auditory gift. Perhaps when I was sitting in my college lecture, and listening to my professor recall all the important items that would be on the final exam. When I went to write my exam, I just closed my eyes and I could hear my professor’s voice reciting the same lecture over again. It was as if a live podcast was being replayed. I ended up getting an A by the way on that exam!”
I can relate to her feeling like her auditory memory being a sixth sense and so natural because whenever I listen to songs that I know by heart I can sing along to them effortlessly. The music I like to listen to is country music. I like artists like Locash, Maroon 5, Brett Young, One Direction, Taylor Swift, Dolly Parton, or Carri Underwood. I think it’s cool that the airpod speaker we have at my home knows I like country music because I can just say the title of a song and not who’s it is by and Syria will play the right one. Cool right?
I would like to talk about the sounds that one may have in their memory in this episode. This may be different based on where you live. But for me, I know what a crying, a car siren, ambulance, fire truck siren or police car siren sounds like. I also know what it sounds like when you drop something like glass, metal, or plastic on the ground. I will play some of the sounds in this episode so you hear what they sound like because I think that would be cool to have as a reference. Also some of your favorite songs that you may want to try listening to are “Somebody” by LoCash, “1,2,3 Mississippi” by Brett Young, and “The Climb” by Miley Cirus.
It may be hard for us to describe what our sixth sense is like to neurotypicals because they may not have that ability so they may not understand what it's like to have it. My family is used to it because they have heard me and my brother go back and forth rehearsing lines from movies that we’ve seen a bunch of times. They’re also used to it because they’ve heard me sing along to my music effortlessly. I can also recall the conversations that I have on the phone at work really well. And ever since I was diagnosed with NLD they knew why I was good at doing those things.
Here is an article titled “Memory Problems and the Non-verbal Learning Disabilities Syndrome” by Peter P. Deyn, Evert Thiery, Rudi D'Hooge
“Severe problems with other contents. In general, these children show a well developed memory for auditory and/or verbal contents (e.g. they have an extended vocabulary). However, they may exhibit severe deficiencies in the recollection of tactile, visual-spatial information. We will, therefore, have to cover these diverse modalities in the assessment. In other words, we will try to create a profile of the auditory, visual and tactile memory. It is important to note that the profile is more important than the level of performance. For instance, a child with NLD could show an average or below average performance on a verbal memory test, while visual and tactile memory may be much below the expected norms.”
I can relate to this quote because I do have better auditory and verbal memory than visual memory. My tactile memory is bad because I have problems remembering where I put important things but if I ask someone in my family to help me find it by asking my questions then that does help me with finding it. I also am good at remembering names which I think is part of your auditory memory because you hear someone's name when they tell it to you. I used to be able to remember about 200 to 300 names at a time when I would go to summer camps as a child growing up. I would look at the group photos at the end of the camp and be able to name everyone in it, even if they were new attendees. I didn’t know why or how I was able to do that at the time because I had never heard of NLD and didn’t know I had it so it fascinated me that I could do it. It still does. If you want to learn more about my memory then please read my article on the NVLD Project called “Blessing in Disguise.”
Whether it’s trying to remember things in your auditory memory and describe what that’s like to neurotypicals, I and other people with NLD still have issues with this today.
Link for article
