I hear but don't understand

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I have an issue where I can hear people's voices but have to ask themselves to repeat themselves 2 or 3 times or sometimes until they're so frustrated they get mad. I have had many hearing tests in my life time and always pass with flying colors. Like I said I hear their voices speaking but cannot always understand the words. Sometimes combining lip reading with listening helps but not always. Does anyone else experience this phenomena? It's kind of a nightmare because I work at a call center. Luckily my boss's daughter has autism so she's pretty patient with me thank the stars!

I have this problem too. It's called auditory processing disorder. For me, I have the most trouble when there are other noises besides one person talking - if other people are talking or there's enough "background noise," I can't filter the person's voice out from the other noises very well. I also will sometimes just need an extra moment to process what someone is saying - I'll ask them to repeat themselves because I didn't understand, but then before they're finished, I realize what they said.

I experience this as well. I didn't recognize it for what it was until recently when I went to a funeral and couldn't understand a word that was said on stage. There was background music playing and the pastor was speaking in a rhythmic style and I suddenly realized that although I could recognize the individual words, I couldn't string them together to make sense of anything. Previously, I'd always assumed that everyone else was having the same problem but this time it was evident that I was alone because everyone else was laughing at jokes and responding in unison to things said on stage that I couldn't follow at all.

It made me realize that I experience this in a lot of other things too. I don't know enough about auditory processing disorder to say that's what it is, but I can say that you're definitely not alone in it.

Yes, I have this problem sometimes, most frequently when dealing with accents. I also find that sometimes, if I'm watching TV, I'm better off turning on subtitles.

I think it's exacerbated by the fact that, if there's a single word in the sentence that I didn't understand, I tend to get hung up on that word rather than just automatically filling in the blanks.

Nothing diagnosed with regards to auditory processing disorder, but I certainly wouldn't rule it out.

Thank you dragonsanddemons for mentioning auditory processing disorder! I didn't know it had a name. This comes and goes for me - I often need to focus really hard on lip-reading people and following their words. This despite having super-hearing (I can hear faint sounds that most people aren't able to hear.) Sometimes it's like a switch flips and I just don't understand spoken English anymore - it's like a pleasant sound that tickles the back of my neck or a grating sound, depending on the speaker. People speaking in unusual rhythms and cadences or with unconventional sentence structure often impair my understanding. I can adjust to most accents after a few minutes, though. Being this way makes it hard to just relax and chat with folks - I have to stare at them and really focus. I also very much prefer to have captions on when I'm viewing videos or movies.

Wow I never realized this was such a huge hurtle with our community! It's a relief knowing I'm not alone in this. I feel like we all learned something new and it's kind of cool.

I always end up repeating or retranslating what the other person said because they either didn't say the words correctly, they mumbled, their accents were too thick, they spoke like a caveman without enough description, or they didn't explain themselves very well, or they used too many colloquialisms, etc. etc. Essentially they have to speak perfect English to me or else it will irritate the hell out of me.

Background noise such as mechanical noises, other people talking, lights being too bright, something is beeping, all of these distractions don't help at all either.

This is a constant and everyday battle for me.

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*** High Functioning Autism - Asperger's Syndrome ***

ADHD, OCD, and PTSD.

Keep calm and stim away.

Me too.
Sometimes people's speech is just lost in a general whoosh of background noise. So I think... this guy's still talking at me, I'll just hope smile and nod and hope he doesn't ask a question that requires a proper answer. I've thought about saying I can't hear a word, but they keep on talking at me. Some people seem to think... can't hear what I'm saying = can't understand what I'm saying... therefore I'm clearly an idiot.

Sometimes. I have yet to find if it's random or there's something else to make it worse or frequent... Apart from not mistaking it as a working memory problem.
Regardless, it's a recent thing for me.

It's not just other people's speech I kept mishearing into gibberish, I also mishear my own.
Even, in my mind and intention knew what I said and said something, I heard gibberish to the point that I ask someone else what did I said.

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I´ve often trouble making sense of what someone just said....I mean, I misunderstand on a pretty basic level - I simply can´t put the words together - it sounds like gibberish. Strange. As the neighbour said: I don´t understand a hoot, if there´s a comma missing.

I have the same except I understand them as soon as I say "what?" Which makes me saying "what" pointless