Auditory Issues

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Today my office colleagues went for a picnic
They were standing together and discussing a incident......
i was standing very close to them....but yet i couldnt understand a word of anything they were saying
otherwise i have a sharp auditory sense but when people are talking i cant understand the conversation
especially when they talk in a complex manner without simple explanation everything goes bonkers
does this happen with anyone else............

Yes, it happens on a regular basis. People just don't admit it.

There are several reasons for it, but the most common one is an abnormal hearing profile. The chances of getting it diagnosed properly is minimal, to say the least. There are hearing aids that translate the sound up or down the scale so that it's in your most useful range, but they cost in the thousands of dollars.

My suggestion is that you learn to lip-read, as in, the deaf learn to understand speech by reading people's lips. It takes agile eyes to keep up with the conversation, but at least you will get the most of it and people will never suspect you are having difficulty, thus preventing their marginalizing you for being different.

"The best defense is a good offense." (Said by a football coach who had a clue on how life works.)

Ma Hook, Life & Transition Coach

Yes, I have some hearing problems too. They're not auditory, I receive the sound just fine. But sometimes there's a delay in processing. Not always.

When it happens, at first it will just come across gibberish. The sentence will gradually resolve or crystallize over a delay of 1-2 seconds.

Sometimes, during the time it's resolving, it seems like my brain is trying out various word sounds and trying to "fit" them in. For instance, someone will say, "I went to the store today and bought a candy bar." First it'll just be a mess of sounds that make no sense. Then words will start to resolve, but some of them will be wrong. My brain will try out a few things - an example for that sentence might be "I went to the war by day and fought a dandy star". And very soon it'll resolve into the proper sentence. The process isn't long, only a few seconds at most. And it only happens occasionally.

But sometimes, if I'm distracted or there's noise, I'll lose the sound before it ever resolves, and all I'm left with is the gibberish or the weird sentence.

There are some people whose language I understand very well and there are others whose language simply does not code, and they could be talking about exactly the same subject matter. I used to think it was just a matter of getting to know the person better, but I am finding this is not completely true. My only explanation is that there are different English dialects. Accents may be easier to distinguish, but there are also a person's vocabulary tendencies and speech rhythms. Perhaps if a listener is hyperaware of differences, or for example, relies more on someone's speech rhythms than on their vocabulary, when they listen to someone whose speech rhythm is unfamiliar, they may end up finding they are not understanding the person despite knowing the vocabulary they are using.

Just recently, I was trying to converse and was having a hard time understanding this other person and the thought came to me that it might be the rhythm of his speech, and I thought to try to tell him this, but decided not to because he might take offense if I could not explain it properly.

I have this type of problem A LOT. It gets worse if:

-there's a lot of background noise (it masks speech sounds)
-someone has an odd accent/dialect
-I'm especially distracted or tired

It seems to be getting worse. I just hope I can continue to manage it or one of my jobs (cashiering at Wal-Mart) will become all but impossible.

Since it's not my ears that have the problem, but my brain (some of you mentioned processing issues--I'm pretty sure that's it), I don't know if there's anything I can do about it.

It's starting to affect my own speech, too (feedback?).

I have that problem too. Especially if someone is trying to talk to me while there is music playing. Seems like my brain wants to hear the music and could care less about what the person in front of me is saying.

I've difficulty with understanding speech and making sentences in my mind when I'm sensory overloaded.
Another problem is background noise.. I just can't understand/ hear what people are saying when a lot of people are talking or there is music, e.g. in cafes or other places where people are going out. This is sooo frustrating. You can't have a conversation with anyone, because if you don't hear what they're saying it just stops.. It's like you're selective deaf or something.
Reading people's lips may be a solution, but from what I've heard it's very difficult to learn and an exhausting process. But perhaps it's worth the try.
I guess these auditory problems come from sensory issues and from the fact a lot of autistic people are better at processing visually information (pictures) than auditory information.