I cannot process two sound sorces at once

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Hi.
If i am sitting in class and there is someone talking indistinctly and the teacher is talking to me i cannot hear a word? All the sounds kind of make a mess and all i hear is sounds but not words?
What is this?

Essentially the same thing happens to me. It's part of of being on the spectrum: an inability to filter out irrelevant sensory input. It's why I can't stand trying to talk to someone when a TV is blaring nearby.

I have much the same issue. If there is more than one conversation going on it becomes very hard to pull one out of the other. I've also always been much worse that others at picking out the words in a song.

When I talk to someone at a park or something and I hear someone in the background, I may lose track of the conversation.

In school/lectures was always unable to concentrate if listeners are simultaneously chatting.

Me, too.

Way back when, I went from a normal junior high school, to a newly-built high school designed on the "open plan," with most stuff happening in one huge room. They put up dividers, but still during most classes you could hear at least three other teachers talking. Instantly I went from being nearly a straight-A student to Cs at best. Couldn't concentrate.

Same here. It just sounds like jumbled sounds. I also have troubles with accents and people talking fast, although I've gotten used to some accents with a lot of practice (like I used to not be able to understand people from East London, but I'm getting better, by watching a lot of British TV imports. People from Manchester, on the other hand, sound as comprehensible as the Swedish chef on the Muppet show. Sorry, Mancunians).

Multiple conversations become one sound. The you sharpen your ears to try to separate the voice of the person you're listening to from the big sound-soup and it eventually all just bleeds together and becomes very loud inside my head, even if they talk in a normal voice. Sensory amplification happens gradually, and eventually I just have to sit it out until the "storm of voices" calms down, or I get so overstimulated I just have to leave.

I'm glad I'm not in school anymore. Suffice to say I spend a lot of time at home, reading books. Music is alright, because once you know a song, or know the general idea of a style of music, it's easy to adapt to that.

Google,
Auditory Processing Disorder
also,
Auditory Processing Delay
(a subtype of APD. Unfortunately with the same acronym)

Essentially, it is exactly analogous to dyslexia, but for processing heard language instead of seen. From what I understand it's pretty common for AS/ASD people, although NT people have it too.

I have the same thing, except it also affects my concentration when reading. For example, if I'm trying to read something and people nearby are talking I'll have a hard time filtering out their conversation and not focus on it. Its also annoying because when I'm gaming I rely on the audio a lot and I feel lost and confused when I can't hear it properly.

I get really mad when I'm trying to listen to something or someone and somebody else suddendly starts talking because it feels like they're talking less than an inch away from my ears.

I get this. I can't concentrate on reading a book when the TV is on, or participate in a conversation in a crowded room. I'm fairly certain that my auditory sensory difficulties are a greater barrier to socialization than anything involving body language or empathy.

I've been hearing some publicity buzz about some experimental headphones that allow you to filter the sound you hear. Like normal headphones, you can change volume and turn down the bass. You can also isolate sounds or block out others entirely, which hopefully includes drunken neighbours and everyone in the room that you aren't talking to. I don't care how expensive these things are, I'm going to get some.

One of the usual defining characteristics is an inability to selectively block and filter auditory speech and similar sounds. If I'm in a room with one person and I can see their mouth (helps find the cadence & match lips to sounds) I can often understand them fine. If there is background noise that is similar in any way to speech (rhythm or frequencies) then I have to sort of let the sounds come in and "listen" in my head to a delayed, pieced back together version. It's a coping mechanism. If there are multiple people talking, I cannot filter them ("cocktail party phenomenon" is where people *can* filter to hear just the person they are focusing on). If it's loud and multiple talkers, I get overwhelmed very quickly.

For me, interfering/additional speech or sounds scramble any speech or sounds I'm trying to hear, but also have the same effect as sensory overload even at relatively low volumes. My train of internal thoughts gets scrambled somewhat. Over the years, I've learned workarounds but they are fatiguing.

One of the usual defining characteristics is an inability to selectively block and filter auditory speech and similar sounds. If I'm in a room with one person and I can see their mouth (helps find the cadence & match lips to sounds) I can often understand them fine. If there is background noise that is similar in any way to speech (rhythm or frequencies) then I have to sort of let the sounds come in and "listen" in my head to a delayed, pieced back together version. It's a coping mechanism. If there are multiple people talking, I cannot filter them ("cocktail party phenomenon" is where people *can* filter to hear just the person they are focusing on). If it's loud and multiple talkers, I get overwhelmed very quickly.

For me, interfering/additional speech or sounds scramble any speech or sounds I'm trying to hear, but also have the same effect as sensory overload even at relatively low volumes. My train of internal thoughts gets scrambled somewhat. Over the years, I've learned workarounds but they are fatiguing.

Yes. I hate having someone try to talk to me when there's a TV or radio or other sound source going on, or in a noisy environment.

But one interesting thing -- I'm an interpreter, and I can listen to a recording of simultaneous interpreting (which is actually one language a couple of seconds behind the other one, but the meaning is theoretically the same) without difficulty. So maybe it's having both things mean the same thing, or "belong" together, that makes it okay in that case. Many NTs can't listen actively to two messages at the same time in this way, though they can ignore one message that's irrelevant and focus on another one.