Audio processing lag and recognizing people

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It is not uncommon when people talk to me for my initial response to be "what?". I know I heard something but don't know what I heard. It's as if they didn't speak loud enough for me to hear. But if they don't repeat it, it will often "register" late. This has been happening my whole life.

Today, for example, someone said something as they were walking by and I didn't "hear" it. I replied "what?" as they were walking away but they didn't hear me and did not repeat it. When they were about 30 feet away it came to me. It's like a processing delay.

After being diagnosed as an adult I started thinking about many things I've had trouble with throughout life but had accepted as personal quirks; like having always assumed I just had "sensitive" ears. I have learned many of them are actually autism things.

When this happened today it made me wonder, is this an autism thing or a personal quirk?

Which reminds me of another one. Last week someone saw me from behind and approached me excitedly. "It's great to see you! How have you been?", ect, etc. They knew my name and it seemed that they knew me very well. I sat there thinking "who the heck is this?" I knew I knew them but i couldn't identify them. I found out a few days later it was someone I did in fact know well. I interacted with them daily for several months about a year ago. When I learned who they were I remembered it all. I didn't "forget" them, I just didn't "recognize" them. This also is not an uncommon occurrence. It frustrates me.

I often wonder what's wrong with my brain. Thats not normal is it? I mentioned it to my therapist. She made no comment other than to ask me if I had told my neuropsychologist about it as if it had some significance. I had not. It was another of those things I had just accepted as a personal quirk. But now I wonder, is this an Autism thing or a "me" thing?

Searching online hasn't given me any insight. Do any of you have any?

I have a similar delay in processing what people say. I had put it down to hearing loss. I wasn’t diagnosed with ASD until just over a year ago so I don’t know what the cause is. Like you l ask people to repeat a lot, but without the repeat will belatedly figure out what was said.

My husband has this.

Casual conversation isn't on his radar screen. Human speech is background noise unless my husband is looking directly at you, and acknowledges your presence. Then he hears it.

A coworker passing my husband's desk saying, "Great to see you this morning, can you get me the paper work off of Bob's desk? Thanks!" All said while walking. My husband has heard none of it.

Hour later, the person is pissed that the paper work isn't on his desk. My husband probably did look up at him while the guy was talking. Him looking up in NT world means my husband acknowledged the conversation. My husband didn't hear s**t. He may or may not even remind the guy walking by.

Him not processing language correctly without the person making it an "almost like an official meeting", has made his life a living hell. People believe he is ignoring them, or he's so self important he doesn't have to listen. "Oh, you want the world to grind to a halt so you can take it all in. How wonderful to be that inflexible." On a good day my husband has trouble with conversation. For him to process the whole conversation means it has to be 1:1 conversation with the person ONLY talking. Not doing paperwork and talking. Not washing dishes and talking. Not doing anything and talking. Well...that doesn't happen with 90% of NT conversations.

I'm thinking him it's a combo of anxiety, poor social skills and language processing lag.

I seem to need to mull over what people have said to me for some hidden meaning, just in case there's a meaning I've missed, probably because I haven't looked for a facial expression to guide me (wouldn't recognise the emotion if I did look at them). I also ask them to repeat; it buys time.

I have to be purposefully paying attention & know someone is about to say something directly to me to understand what they said, or else their voice is just noise. Most of the time, when I'm not expecting any messages, I don't understand the noise as words. Sometimes I do understand unexpected messages, & that makes people angry with me often, because they seem to believe I was willfully ignoring them those other times I didn't respond.

This is why I have subtitles on the television.