yesterday's auditory testing

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I had my Auditory Testing done yesterday. It took almost two hours. Most of the time was spent in a “booth” wearing snug headphones. There was a cord on the headphones I could hear brush against my clothes. I had to repeat words back that were said into one ear or the other. Then I had to say back only the word said in one ear when two words were said simultaneously in both ears. I didn’t get all of those. Nor did I get many of the sentences said in that fashion. I also had to repeat back sentences and words spoken with background noise. Didn’t do well there, either.
I was shown to have slight hearing loss with a definite processing dysfunction. Being an adult, there is not much that can be done. I was told to use visual cues (what are they? how are they used?) and in school sit in an area with less distraction and noise(uh..where?).
Do other people have problems hearing when there is competing noise like background noise or other people talking? Do others sometimes hear ‘noise’ come out of someone else’s mouth with no idea what they said?
Did any of the above post make sense?

I have not had auditory testing done, but yes, I have similar problems.

I have a difficult time hearing what people say when there is background noise. And when there are several conversations going on at once, it's nearly impossible. I can also relate to what you've said about not understand what people are saying, but hearing them. I think we have had a thread about this before, but I don't recall the title, unfortunately. It seems many others share this problem, as well.

For me, it is often a "delayed processing" type of thing, where I hear them, don't understand, and then a few seconds later (about the time I have said "what?" to them) the meaning hits me. Sometimes, I don't understand at all, for example, I was walking out of one of our school buildings with my friend and we ran into a teacher we both had last year. He said something rather loudly, I believe it was just something like "What are you guys up to, how is everything?" and I could only stare at him blankly while my friend responded. I only puzzled out later what he must have said.

Someone on here described it as sounding like people have their mouth full of mashed potatoes, and I think that is the best description I have heard of this odd problem.

I do not think I have hearing loss, as I am hypersensitive to certain types of sound. It seems more like just a processing problem, for me. I sometimes think sounds are coming from the opposite side of me, as well, and most of my problems seem to be with processing speech. This does not occur too frequently, fortunately, but it is more difficult for me to understand some people than others.

Complete sense.

I have the same hearing differences myself. Just yesterday I was talking on the phone to a friend. Her partner was talking to us in the background every now and then, and I would ask "what did he say?" Then 5 minutes later he was up the other end of the house making a loud noise. My friend yells out to him "what are you doing?" and he called back "I'm just shifting furniture". She didn't hear him and said to me "I don't know what he's doing". I said "he's just shifting furitnure".
She then paid me out (in a fun way) about not hearing him when he was standing next to the phone, but being able to hear him when he is up the end of the house.
Sometimes though, it can be a big nucience the way I hear.
I have also noticed that different pitches and tones of voice either sound like a muffle or a high pitch screech. Mostly it is ok though. I didn't realize I could get auditory tested. Is this different from normal hearing test?

ElfMan

Yes I know the feeling. The worst for me is when I'm talking on the phone. I need realative silence when I'm on the phone, or the person on the other end is going to sound like their mumbling.

Also music in the backround will compete with peoples voices, either I have to ask someone to speak louder or turn down the music.

Last semester I would go to dinner on ocassion with another person who lived in my dorm, and trying to converse with this person was near impossible when other's were around, Many times I found myself wanting to say "what?" after every sentence, but I witheld from doing so out of fear of embarrasment. So I would just nod in acknowledgment even though I did not understand a word they had said.

I've recognized very similar difficulties with my own hearing as early as my middle school years. If someone tells me something in the presence of background noise, I can identify that the person is speaking, but I will usually be unable to pick up anything that the person says.

Ah, yes... I remember having these auditory processing tests done back in elementary school. I did absolutely horribly on the ones that involved distorted speech and background noise.

I still have problems with phone calls, especially with people whose voices I haven't become very accustomed to, due to the muffling of sound due to the low bandwidth of phone lines. Also, TV and movies are so much easier to follow with captioning-- no more struggling to make out what people are saying amidst all the ambient noises!

When I'm tired or stressed out, things are made only worse; I start to have difficulties processing even the clearest speech in real time, and it's like I'm running on some sort of delay, as a few other people have mentioned in the thread.

I also have a hard time understanding rapid speech, even face-to-face. It's much easier when there are reasonably clear breaks between the words; otherwise, everythingjustsortofrunstogether andIcan'ttellwhereonewordendsandtheotherbegins. If you get my drift. Also, accents that I'm not quite accustomed to are often disorienting (Indian tech support, anyone?).

And I'm notorious for asking people to repeat themselves, regardless of the occasion.

Oh, also, forget about deciphering song lyrics. I've come up with utterly hilarious mishearings for more than a few songs! And I have a hard time remembering song lyrics if I don't see them in print.

I think that's enough of a rant for now. But I think everyone can get a good idea of why I prefer written communication to spoken.

I hope that no one will find this offensive, but where I come from (non-English speaking country) there is such a joke:
You want to speak English well? Fill your mouth with mashed potatoes!

This joke highlights the problem that English vowel system is one of the most complex and unstable among world languages. Number of vowel sounds greatly exceeds number of vowel letters in the Roman alphabet, and their pronunciation varies not only between various accents, but also between related words within the speech of one person (ex. student - study). An added difficulty is that these nuances are not marked in writing, as words are spelled as they were before the 15th century Great Vowel Shift, while their pronunciation has since changed. This is of no help to a visual learner. Other vowel shifts are occurring nowadays in various regions, and this creates an additional difficulty in comprehension of the spoken English language.

Oh good, I'm not the only who does this! It's really frustrating because by the time I say "what" I understand what they said and don't need it repeated, but of course, they do repeat it.

Also, schnerd, that test sounds awful! Two hours of struggling to figure out what competing things in different ears are saying?! I'd probably just get frustrated and ask to leave.

It is good to know I am not alone in this. I was ready to leave at several points during the testing, but wanted to get it done. Another problem I had was that the walls were covered with something full of small holes. So…I’d be counting the holes instead of listening.
The words were taped and it didn’t take long before the tester was stopping the tape to give me more time to respond. I would shake my head when I couldn’t give even a guess.

LOL yes that happens to me most of the time. And even though I know about it now I still can't stop myself from saying "What?" or "Huh?"

Yes I find myself having that difficulty too often, often have to ask for people to repeat questions and such or will misread/misjudge what they say.