To be honest, I personally can see how some children with mild loss
could be misdiagnosed just for the fact that while those of us with mild loss often thrown into the area, "This person/child has plenty of residual hearing left."
I've had people look at me like I'm stupid before simply because I misunderstood what they said. Not every time does this happen to me, of course. It's just a few people in the world being stupid. I can't say that the one hearing person is living to that type of stereotype.
However if a child with mild loss misunderstands it people
could associate that child with being slow mentally simply because they 'mishear' (if that is a word). I can't imagine how those with APD (with normal hearing or otherwise) would feel in that situation. Now, does this always happen? I doubt it.
Could medical professionals misdiagnose it? It's possible.
On another note...I know it hasn't been directly implied but I don't like the fact that mild loss makes us "so close to hearing" is so many people's eyes.
Is mild loss like those with profound loss? Of course not.
Can people with mild loss pick up speech very well? Sure...but not always the case either.
Can we function with out hearing aids? Definitely but that doesn't make it any easier on us either.
But that doesn't mean we don't struggle at times ourselves. Yeah we hear good compared to many and some of us can even hear well enough except at certain times. Though that doesn't mean we don't have challenges like those with more severe losses. They be minor but we still have them as well.
I have a mild (left) and moderate (right) cookie-bite loss with one ear slipping into low-frequency loss. I misunderstand what people say simply because often people talk in the mid-frequency range...the one I struggle the most on hearing correctly with. Sometimes I mishear a lecture in class because of this loss and I think the professors are swearing at me (it's funny to learn they didn't say sh*t instead of sheet).
So from the few experiences I was thought of as stupid because I misunderstand them...I can see how children could be labeled mentally challenged. Now am I promoting deafdyke's stuff? No. I'm just giving an opinion from my point-of-view.
And umm...sorry of my total random vent/talk.