Do you have auditory problems? I can't hear what people say

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I find myself not being able to hear what people are saying a lot. I'll say "what" a bunch of times in a conversation and feel like an idiot. It's like sometimes my brain just decides to filter what people are saying into incoherent babble.

Also sometimes I process things slower than other people. Like someone will say something and others will laugh and then five seconds later I'll actually start thinking about what was said, and then I get it. But by then it's too late to laugh. It's like I'm not in the moment.

I had very bad problems with this when I was younger. I don't think it's as severe now. I literally seemed unable to understand what anybody was saying the first time. I think it was a combination of processing things slower and having trouble hearing the specific words. I still need subtitles for movies.

My family questioned my hearing ability but I seem to hear just fine. They tell me I just "didn't pay attention". I think I pay more attention and have more focus than most people.

Last edited by buryuntime on 25 Jan 2011, 9:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I have that problem now, but I think a big reason for that is because I trained myself to block out all the crap my parents would say. Then again, maybe it's something else.

Yeah, it's not an auditory problem. It's more a processing problem. I used to think I had bad hearing, but I tested just fine. It's especially bad if there is other noise in the background, and it's absolutely impossible to make sense of anything in a noisy environment like a bar, for example.

I have a lot of trouble with processing sound. It's especially bad in a noisy environment. I had my hearing tested just over a year ago. It's above average, so it's not a hearing problem. My brain just can't sort out one sound among a bunch of noise.

I read something a while ago saying that autistics process spoken words slower than usual. Only something like 0.2 seconds slower but it still has an affect. That and not being able to block out other sounds really makes it hard to understand what has been said.

I think I may have an auditory processing disorder. Sometimes, when I listen to other people talking, the end of the sentence sounds slurred. Sometimes, the entire sentence sounds that way. I wish everybody came with closed captions, that way there'd be this scroll of written words across their foreheads and I could just read that while listening to them talk.

Get your hearing checked by an audiometrist. You may be going deaf.

I am hard of hearing and I need hearing aids.

ruveyn

I have to see someone's mouth, watch them form the words, and can't hear anything but "mumblemumble" if it comes from another room. It's incredibly frustrating, especially when you ask "what?" and they move into an explanation. I don't want an explanation, I just want you to repeat EXACTLY what you said, so I can make sure I understood the words coming outta your mouth! (they never do)

Argh...

I also has it to some extent. It is called auditory processing disorder. Please, see the link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory_p ... g_disorder
We with asperger's have problem differentiating sounds from each other, for e.g. if there are multiple conversation going in a room NTs can process them differently but we hear a mesh of sounds or noise. Similarly NTs are also able to process meaning of each and every word differently and not just sound. This is why I explicitly made rule 2 and didn't combined it with rule 1. I call these local language skills. Please see my signature.

Yup. Happens to me.
Generally, my hearing is fine though.

Last edited by Luci on 26 Jan 2011, 9:00 am, edited 1 time in total.

I used to say "what" so much as a kid , i finally had to have surgery to be able to hear what people said. Thing is, I DO have some auditory processing problems, but i am also hypersensitive to sound. I think the body can react against it and try to block out some of the sound , and that's the only part the dr saw, so i got surgery at 6. Then i had to live with my fingers in my ears for a few years after that...But i still have the auditory processing problem of course

Americans are routinely subject to sounds at a level that will damage their hearing. Being exposed on a daily basis to sound over 50 Db will wreck hearing eventually. Many Americans are hard of hearing because of exposure to loud music and traffic noise. Several decades of such exposure will degrade hearing. The U.S. is going deaf.

I am a victim, although it was really my fault. I used to shoot a rifle and I did not use headgear to muffle the sound. Shame on me. It cost me my hearing. Now I can barely get by with hearing aids.

ruveyn

What surgery?

ah well, i don't have the english word for it, so i'll just describe it: a really small surgery, where they open your drums to let what is behind it come out (don't have the word for that either) , and if it comes back, they will do it again and insert a tube through the drum, that gets eliminated naturally after some time. My body produced substance to protect my brain from the sound impact...that accumulated behind the drum, preventing it from resonating too much.
edit: that was both ears, so my theory seems good enough

I have really good hearing, and I can hear extremely high tone sounds that others can't (an old college friend of mine had a hearing test app. on his iphone, and I could hear the highest sound that was close to a dog whistle as long as the room was quiet, but nobody else could.)
But I have trouble picking out what one person in a conversation is saying, when lot's of people are talking all at once. I'ts like I hear all sounds at the same level. But hearing lot's of different loud noises at once doesn't send me into a meltdown or panic attack or anything, and my hearing isn't particularly sensitive, (in terms of pain), it's just that I get confused in multiple person conversations and I have to stop talking for a bit and listen really hard to who I'm talking to, and then track what they are saying in my head before I can carry on, which might seem a bit strange for whoever I may be talking to, as I seem to take odd pauses.