Hearing and Listening

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I wanted to know if anyone else has this problem because it totally embarasses me at my work place or anywhere. After someone tells me something or I'm being given instructions, I can't hear what they're saying unless they give a clear sharp diction. Funny thing is, I'm not hard at hearing. In fact, I'm sensative to anything loud. I can even hear the voice of the person talking to me but not their diction. I hate having to ask what they've said because soon their voice goes up or they get agitated. Sometimes I have to ask more than twice to please repeat. Just wanted to know if anyone else has this problem.

This happens to me plenty of times.

"Hey, cnan sta hrahwr tum you glakg now, ok? I'd grkla appreshatlhk beforatm maro."

"Uhh, what? Apresha, who?"

That kind of thing happens to me because I have Auditory Processing Disorder (also known as Central Auditory Processing Disorder). I have excellent hearing, but I don't always understand what people say. The sound is either delayed or jumbled into nonsense. It happens more often when there's background noise, or when I'm stressed or tired, but it's also comes and goes kind of randomly. It's a neurological disorder that seems to be common in people on the spectrum.

That's so much like me it's not even funny. My parents always joke around about me being hard of hearing because of my CAPD even though my hearing is just fine.

Happens all the time with me. I'm not deaf, or hard of hearing, but sometimes words really do seem jumbled. Sounds like somebody's speaking another language at times, I can't make out a word at all.

Pretty much all the time.

Yea sounds eerily familiar. I've no problem hearing and sometimes hear way too much. But there are times where someone will talk to me and I can't figure out what they are saying... they get a bit peeved when you say..."huh?" 3 or 4 times.

I've read a few things on this, and believe it's related to how people process langauge. They did a study where they had a person listen to another speak. At first all the syllables were spoken, and gradually more and more was dropped out. The normal person was able to understand the conversation when a large majority of the sounds were dropped or garbled.

For me, if i lose more than a couple I've no idea what someone is saying, as I'm sure is the same for many of the posters here, especially those who notice it gets worse with lots of background noise.

But, here is the kicker, it works both ways. People (mostly NTs but I'm sure we're all guilty at one time or another) don't really listen to what another person says but what they "believe" that person says. I know I'm very specific in the langauge I use.

by the way, a lot of hearing impaired people -seems, in particular, hearing impaired people since birth- don't like loud noises. i hate loud noises. in arguments of closed captions vs make it louder, i get all kinds of twitchy.


edit - i have two hearing issues. the hearing loss, and the hearing but not registering.
i blame both on my hearing impairment in order to smooth things over.

i experience this a lot. i can hear the person talking but can not translate what they are saying into words! it is like they are speaking a different language. no one ever believes me though & i get accused of not listening to people which is rather annoying as i am trying to listen but it is not clear to me what is being said

That's hilarious, because many times that's what I'm hearing. I can't even guess.

my hearing impairment makes the world sound like it's talking 'Simlish' and the AS makes me not notice it.

Oh yes I have this a lot. Something I noticed though is that if I listen to just a voice I can pick it up well. For example an audio recording but if I have a real live person speaking to me it's as though they are speaking a foreign language at full speed but I am still at GCSE level (highschool qualification). I frown and scowl in concentration trying to process the words. This is rather off putting for the speaker.

I've wondered if it's something to do with trying to process lots of information at the same time such as body language, and the AS brain just starts to overheat with the effort. In noisy situations like a lot of people have mentioned I have significant problems.

Yes, I have this, yes, it's Audio Processing Disorder. And very, very annoying it is, too.

Hmm. I think I have this. I thought it was normal though.

For those who have it, does speech always sound jumbled, or is it just at certain times, or when you're feeling tired for e.g?

Generally when I'm tired, concentrating on something else, or if there's background noise. But not always. Sometimes it just happens at random. It's not consistent, though, and most of the time I hear what I assume is "normally."

At certain times for me. On the phone; when I'm tired and when there are competing thoughts are when it jumbles most.