Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Processing simultaneous conversations

Yes, I was the New England American style smooth champion for several years. It's less impressive than it sounds, because American style isn't all that popular in New England. I think my peak placement nationally was eighth (amateur division), but the last time I competed at Nationals I didn't even make the top 24. I haven't danced for almost ten years, though.

I'll be curious to see what else you're able to figure out about your DS!

Neat! I'm not a dancer, but I've come to appreciate ballroom through an aunt who has placed quite competitively as an amateur. I had never realized the distinctions between classes before.

Thanks for the help decoding my son! I've been fascinated to hear about your experiences!

DS 6 does it too with no delay. Last week I found him simultaneously listening to an audiobook, reading a different, complicated chapter book and singing a 3 times table song. He could answer questions about both books. Made my head spin as my brain definitely isn't wired this way!

I do both what aquinas describes and what ElizabethN describes, but it had never occurred to me to think of them as the same thing! I suppose this means I fill my buffer but typically also comprehend its contents as they go in. DS can also do both, I think, but often (as recently discussed) does not actually pay attention to an auditory stream directed at him if he's reading. I have sometimes reacted in annoyance to his claim not to have heard something he should have heard by telling him to replay it - I assumed he'd be able to do it and indeed he could.

I do the *opposite* of what is being described! I cannot process two conversations, I can't process one conversation with a moderate amount of background noise.
In fact, in my house, the way to irritate me quickly is to have two people talking at once. I go into sensory overload, have to cut everyone off, and start again with one conversation at a time.

That's a helpful diagnostic trick. There was zero delay in his answer when he was chatting to me, so I have to assume his comprehension is immediate. He literally broke his sentence, answered my question, then kept going on his original train of thought as if no interruption had occurred.


That's how I am. The visual script is constructed in real-time for me.

I don't really consider this "two" conversations, though-- not really.

It's a personal monologue overlaid with another (outside) monologue. And I can't do it with two other people doing a monologue. Well, I can, but not as accurately or as fast.

The personal monologue for me is processed differently than the external data, if that makes sense.

For me two conversations I'm in and one with background noise of others talking are very different experiences. I have trouble with the latter which feels as though I'm distracted by trying, and failing, to listen to all the other conversations.

That said, I clearly can filter out speech in some circumstances. I can go to sleep with speech radio or an audiobook on, far more easily than with music. I find it difficult not to attend to music, and to attend to both music and speech simultaneously. Music in restaurants bothers me for this reason. DH is the opposite - he'll sleep or work with music on, but not with an audiobook.

Our eldest DS would often read / do homework while a teacher was lecturing. That often didn't go over well with the teacher as they assumed you can't do two things at once and doing anything else while they're lecturing was rude and disrespectful. At one point DS said he'd heard everything the teacher said which the teacher said was impossible.....until the teacher quizzed DS who responded accurately to each question. The teacher just fumed.

I guess my message here is, while we've seen the ability to focus well enough on multiple conversations or tasks at the same time, it's probably a good idea to teach our children that it's generally not well received to do so, especially with authority figures.

I haven't had the nerve to even ask for the accommodation that I know would help DD10 in class. I used to knit in all my classes in college, and found that it dramatically improved my ability to follow the lecture and my retention of it. (I asked permission in small seminar-type classes, but just did it in the big lecture classes.) It provided just enough stimulation to keep my mind from wandering from the topic. I've had conversations in the car with DD when she was working on a craft project, and found that she is much more able to think and attend. But it looks so rude in an elementary classroom, I can't see them going for it. One actual failure to pay attention and it would be tossed on the scrap heap, with DD in trouble, whether or not the accommodation had anything to do with it.

I had one professor who didn't notice right away that I had been knitting. I hadn't been getting particularly good grades on homework, either. When he noticed was right before the first quiz. I think he decided to wait for me to bomb the quiz, then forbid it. When I got the highest score in the class, he was stuck with it. I don't think I ever saw him in the halls after that without him muttering, "Knitting and taking notes at the same time! I don't understand how she does that!" But he became one of my best friends in the department in grad school.

This! This!! My son and I both do that, and an auditory buffer is the perfect way to describe it!

Also the simultaneous talking and listening that HK describes. It's quite interesting sometimes as we make logical leaps that can confound someone who is listening but are perfectly understandable to us.