Trouble understanding what people are saying?

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I am not sure, but it seems to me that I have to ask people, "What?" a lot, or at least more than most people do. Especially in noisy environments, I seem to have problems understanding what a person is saying; this would seem obvious because a noisy environment is noisy, but after observing others talking to each other in the same exact place I've concluded that I do indeed have more trouble with it in pretty much every environment.

I have always known it wasn't my hearing, every time I get a test it's perfect or close to perfect. So it doesn't seem there is any real solution. I don't like it because the people I am talking to start to get annoyed after the third or fourth time of me asking them to repeat. If they would just enunciate more I think I would be fine, but most people don't think to do that for some reason, they say it the exact same way over and over.

This is especially a problem at work because it is noisy there. I do wear hearing protection (ear muffs) but taking them off is painful for me and wouldn't help anyway. There are different hand signals at work to represent different orders, and I really wish they would rely on these more, because often times what they are trying to tell me they could easily just show me. Even if it doesn't have a specific signal, just motioning in some way that implies the action they are trying to communicate would be much more helpful. Half the time I pretend I heard what they said and try to just take what I did hear (mostly just vowels) and try to just logically narrow down what they could have said, but that only works maybe half the time, the other half I just look like I ignored them.

Also, it seems to me that sometimes I do hear people, but very shortly afterwards I only remember that they did tell me something which I understood, and yet what they said did not really register and stick in my memory. I can be looking at them, nodding and even responding, then often just seconds afterwards I have nothing. It's like everything they said got sucked into a black hole in my mind. Often if they say it again I remember, but it isn't uncommon for me to have no recollection of it. And the significance of the matter doesn't seem to affect this, I have forgotten very important information which I even consciously tried repeating in my head or out loud, because as soon as I stop doing that it's gone.

Is this common for Aspies or does it sound like I have ADD as well? I honestly don't think I have ADD, since non-stimulant medication never helped me, and it is my suspicion that Adderall just does to me what a weaker stimulant like caffeine does to normal people (speeds them up), meaning I just have a high tolerance for stimulants. My understanding was that people with ADD feel slowed down by Adderall. My brother definitely has ADHD, and he said Adderall made him a zombie.

WHAT???
No, just kidding! Actually, this happens to me A LOT. It can be a bit annoying and embarrassing for both parties but what I find is that sometimes people's voices blend into the background noises and I can't make out the words so I have to have them repeat what they said sometimes several times. Also, there are times when I simply don't register what the person says. It could be something simple but for some reason my brain can't register the word. If a word is out of context I might not always understand it even if it might be an easy word or one that I know very well.

Also if it's a word that I don't know and it's a word that does not seem to fit like a compound word of two words that don't seem like they should go together I might not hear or register it. For example, my brother had taken me to lunch one time at a restaurant that has a magnificent salt water aquarium. I love that place because I love looking at the fish. He told me the fish were ciclchids, which is the genre of fish that they belong to. I had to ask him to repeat the word "cichlid" five times and I still could not hear or register it because to me the words "sick" and "lid" could not make any sense together. He finally had to do a pantomime like in the game of charades to get me to hear the word.

This happens to me too, a LOT. I've been with my wife for many years but if she says something novel or in a bizarre context(do you want a grapefruit parfait?) as opposed to the usual conversation I often have to ask her what while I try processing what she said to see if I can extract its meaning.

Sometimes I almost understand what someone says, but say what or huh as a stalling tactic to give my brain time to work on it.

I seem to have to "process" speech somehow in my brain to understand it, other people seem to get it naturally.

I have the same problem, too.

I often feel like people are mumbling and cannot separate the voice from background noise. I ask people to repeat themselves as well. Most of the time, my brain will be able to process what the person said but it will take a few seconds to a minute to do so.

This is one reason I do not like talking on the phone.

I have this. Unless I can FULLY concentrate on what is being said, the English language might just as well be Chinese. I can hear the sounds, but cannot understand the words. It's called Central Auditory Processing Disorder (the 'Central' part of that title is not always used now). Public places are impossible. In a pub or supermarket, I'm being so heavily bombarded by visual stimuli that I cannot understand anything being said to me. I dread arriving at the checkout because I will likely be asked a question and I won't understand it. I probably appear incredibly slow and stupid, because a few seconds later I can sometimes realise what was said and will reply belatedly. It's one of the co-morbid conditions accompanying ASDs.

As well as CAPD, what exacerbates it for me is that I'm a visual thinker. Every word shoots out movie-quality scenes. Yesterday, the word 'succeed' was used in something said to me. An immediate movie of a little blue and white budgerigar with yellow cheeks flashed up. The budgie was sitting in his cage at the top on a perch facing sunlight from the window, and was trying to crack the husk off a seed, but having difficulty - that is: "suck seed". These images are high-speed and I have to try to correct them at speed (I immediately forced the image of a group of corporate people with smiles in place of the budgie but by the time I've done this, my mind has probably already raced ahead to the budgies I once used to own, then pet shops....). Meanwhile, there is the undertone of "blah blah blah" as the conversation carries on without me hearing a thing.

I do have to take care too. A statement like "we must all succeed" is likely to cause a fit of giggles if my brain places all my colleagues onto perches trying to crack open seed with their teeth! No-one understands why I'm laughing of course - but they won't know I'm seeing budgie bells, mirrors and things, and bits of seed husk all over their nice clothes!

Auditory processing disorder is fairly common in autistic people from what I've heard. Heh, heard... I wear hearing aids so that's funny to me... And also why I've heard of the disorder.
. I'm not certain how they diagnose APD or CAPD though, so maybe someone else can chime in with some more thorough info.

I didn't know I had this problem until it was to late.


In aviation I would listen to the radio calls, I had to do allot of "Say again" to understand what the control tower wanted me to do. This annoied them.

My ex AS girl friend would like to talk while we were in bed, allot of "what?" was asked by me. It made it look like I was ignoring her. Not good in a relationship.

Every ones speech was garbled if I wasn't face to face to them.

I need to see their lips. I can understand and comprehend language if I could concentrate on the movement of their mouth. That was easy in Boot camp...their mouths would be right in your face.

I curse the way my brain has to be this specific. I would still have a handful of a GF. I wish I realized that I was different. She pointed it out...I was to stubborn to act.

I get this too. I think that when you find your hearing is worse in noisier situations it's not because your hearing is deficient in general, but that your hearing is usually working okay but your brain has difficulty filtering out the irrelevant noise to pick up on the bits you want to hear, like the voice of the person you're trying to listen to, if that makes sense. So think that maybe has more to do with sensory processing disorder (as someone said) than what people traditionally mean when they talk about hearing, i.e. the actual working of the ears etc. Might be wrong though.

This is very common in people with autism.

Our audial input is processed differently by the brain compared to a typical brain, also the response from sound seems to activate different parts of the brain more than usual as well. Because of this certain noises may feel much more intense to us, such as a loud noise may strike a very unpleasant feeling of pain, sadness, fear or anger rather than just a quick alertness response the typical person would have.

This also comes accompanied with what you describe, in situations with a lot of background noise I find it impossible to filter the important noise ( someone talking to me ) from the background noise ( people talking to each other, music ). All I hear is waves upon waves of sound all crashing down on me at the same time and I have to find and concentrate extremely hard to be able to discern the noise I want to hear, if possible at all.

On the bright side though this also has it's positive effects. I find that with music I like I get a much more heavy emotional response than other people to the point where it may alter my state of mind. Listening to music can completely change my mood and I can easily dream away in it forgetting everything else around me. This is why I often listen to music while I am outside, it feels isolating and comforting from the outside chaos. The rhythmic sound of rain falling down outside also seems to calm me down a lot. Because of this I love exercising and jogging in the rain, which other people find weird as they have a much more unpleasant connection with rain.

A lot of people with autism have a heavy response and an above average talent for music because they feel more connected to it. The pathways between the auditory centre of the brain have much more synaptic connections to other parts of the brain than a typical brain, this is why many psychiatrists recommend people with autism to start playing music they like or start practising an instrument to lower average stress levels. This is called music therapy and is used quite commonly now for autistic children.

Indeed, I have auditory processing problems myself.

When there's a loud hubbub, I have trouble hearing what a nearby person is saying--I have trouble separating the nearby person's words from the hubbub.

I think it's related to my relative inability to do two things at once, and to attend to two media at the same time (e.g., TV and radio).

Oh wow. I have this too. At school where I work, I tell people I'm a little deaf from listening to loud music when I was younger, but often I hear clearly but just can't work out what they're saying. It's very frustrating asking people to repeat themselves as much as I do.

Yes, this happens to me sometimes. It is very difficult for me to filter out 'important' stuff when there is a lot of background noise and I often don't process or understand someone speaking to me because I'm getting overwhelmed by everything going on around me and my brain can't seem to center in on one person. I've also always had a problem with speaking too fast or oddly for others to hear me. I tend to mumble things or fuse words together or not pronounce them clearly enough for others to understand. All of it can be very frustrating sometimes.

This is true too in my experience. Though being so sensitive to sound to the point where it physically pains your ears when ten people are talking isn't fun, I'm glad that I have a connection with music. It makes me feel very intense emotions, especially certain parts of one song that have a certain rhythm which I'll replay over and over. I can usually only go several hours without listening to it before I get antsy about not having it and need to plug my headphones in, even if just for five minutes. It also gives me a lot of energy so often I will pace while listening to music. I also get very excited about listening to music in a car, or (quiet) train or bus because I like to move fast.

I love the rain too, especially sleeping while it's raining outside. It makes me very, very relaxed and calm, like everything will be okay. Sometimes I will turn on a recorded thunderstorm to listen to before I go to sleep.

I 100% relate to this. That is how I feel a lot of times as well especially if there are other noises in the background.

Me too. People complain about that with me a lot.

I've always thought that being unable to selectively hear someone in a noisy environment, and also being thrown off cognitively when someone changes the conversation - or goes in a different direction with the conversation - to be all part and parcel of being on the autism spectrum.

Both of these issues are a constant / daily challenge for me.

I can hear faint noises that other people don?t notice, but in a noisy environment I usually rely on lip reading...

Different accents and dialects make lip reading harder for me.