There are many symptoms of CAPD that can cause me to respond incorrectly to spoken directions. Here are some examples.
I was sitting in class in third grade, and the teacher told us to write things "IN COMPLETE SENTENCES". She said these words much more loudly and slowly than the other words, and repeated them several times. I turned in a paper full of sentence fragments. She asked me why I had disobeyed her. I told her that she had said to write "incomplete sentences". She said something like, "You must be joking." I was not joking, but "in complete sentences" sounded just like "incomplete sentences" because I had blended the two words together.
More times than I can count, I have heard part of an instruction but not the whole instruction. Often, I catch the importance stressed on that instruction, but not all of the words. Hence, an emphatic command such as, "It is very important to me that you do not come over here and touch the exhibit" can be misconstrued. I might hear, "...very important...touch the exhibit" and then do the opposite of what I was told.
I was on a field trip to Yosemite in seventh grade, and we were hiking back from a high waterfall. I noticed some beautiful patterns in the ice along the trail. I stopped to stare at them, and was momentarily unable to process sound. I noticed that people were moving, so I moved, stepping straight onto the ice. I slipped and knocked a teacher over, and he started yelling at me. "Didn't I just tell you not to step on the ice?" Then, I finally processed what he had said before. Something like, "The ice is dangerous. Do not step on it or you could get hurt." I can't remember how I responded, but it would not have been very convincing since I did process his speech, just with too much of a delay to follow his instructions.
CAPD.