{"id":3596,"date":"2025-10-31T15:02:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T15:02:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/31\/people-with-autism-may-struggle-to-hear-in-busy-crowds-study-suggests\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T15:02:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T15:02:09","slug":"people-with-autism-may-struggle-to-hear-in-busy-crowds-study-suggests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/31\/people-with-autism-may-struggle-to-hear-in-busy-crowds-study-suggests\/","title":{"rendered":"People with autism may struggle to hear in busy crowds, study suggests"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>2025-10-31 15:02:06<\/b><br \/>\n<BR>People with autism may find it harder to follow conversations in noisy environments.<BR><br \/>\nA study conducted by the University of Washington School of Medicine found that understanding speech in crowded places like restaurants or classrooms depends heavily on cognitive ability, rather than physical hearing. <BR><br \/>\nThe findings, published in PLOS One, reveal that intelligence strongly predicts how well individuals can focus on one voice while filtering out background noise.<BR><br \/>\nLead author Dr Bonnie Lau, assistant professor of otolaryngology and director of auditory brain development studies at UW, said: \u201cThe relationship between cognitive ability and speech-perception performance transcended diagnostic categories.\u201d<BR><br \/>\nResearchers studied 49 participants aged 13 to 47, including people with autism, fetal alcohol syndrome, and neurotypical controls, all with normal hearing. <BR><br \/>\nEach completed a listening test that simulated a crowded environment, asking them to follow a main speaker\u2019s commands while ignoring two other competing voices.<BR><br \/>\nParticipants also took standardised IQ tests, revealing a strong link between intellectual ability and the ability to understand speech amid background chatter. <BR><br \/>\nLau explained: \u201cYou have to separate streams of speech, focus attention, and process language &#8211; all of which increase cognitive load when it\u2019s noisy.\u201d<BR><br \/>\nThe study challenges the common misconception that difficulty listening in noisy settings signals hearing loss. <BR><br \/>\nLau said: \u201cYou don\u2019t have to have hearing loss to have a hard time listening in a restaurant or any other real-world situation.\u201d<BR><br \/>\nThe findings could help educators and clinicians design better learning and communication environments for neurodivergent individuals, for example, by reducing background noise or positioning students closer to the speaker.<BR><br \/>\nDr Lau said the research underscores that listening in crowds is \u201cas much a test of the brain as it is of the ears\u201d.<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/\" target=\"_blank\"> Visit Bang Bizarre (main website) <\/a><br \/>\n<br \/><script src=\"https:\/\/geo.dailymotion.com\/player\/xtbac.js\" data-video=\"\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>2025-10-31 15:02:06 People with autism may find it harder to follow conversations in noisy environments. A study conducted by the University of Washington School of Medicine found that understanding speech&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3597,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bizarre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3596"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3598,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3596\/revisions\/3598"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}