Having issues with processing words in conversations

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When I'm talking to people, I often have ask them to repeat the words/sentences they said several times in order to understand them, or if I do understand what they said the first time, it takes me a few seconds to fully process what they said. I also have an issue with the "cocktail party effect" (focusing on the sounds I want to hear), so I often get distracted by outside conversation when I want to focus on the people who are talking to me. Does anyone else have issues like this?

I do...it's near impossible for me to have a conversation in a noisy environment, I have to tell people to repeat themselves multiple times; like, sometimes I will hear the words but I kind of need to make sure it's what I think it is, and sometimes the background noise completely overpowers anything they have said and I do not understand at all. I have bad self awareness and I thought everyone had this problem but then one day I noticed around me that people were able to have a normal flowing conversation while dozens of others around them were talking, and all the noise in the background did not seem to bother them at all.
Also it always takes me a while to come up with a proper response when people are talking to me so there's always a small pause before I start talking. Or complete silence if I can't come up with anything to say.

Yes. It's pretty common here and it's related to auditory processing disorder.

I'm pretty sure I drive people crazy sometimes with my "what?!" Over and over.
Sometimes it seems like the other person's voice is on a delay.

I have that problem sometimes but some of that may be cuz I get distracted due to ADD. My girlfriend mishears things a lot sometimes thou & probably has auditory processing disorder.

I lack the cocktail party effect as well. Even if I am not in a noisy, crowded room, I will still hear the tiny noises that tend to drown out the person in front of/beside me. The water running through pipes in the walls, the clock in the other room, the neighbors getting in/out of their car, or even the buzz of the appliances in the adjacent rooms. It makes it difficult to have any conversation anywhere.

Auditory processing disorder, yes.

Since I've been working, I've learned to expand my script, and I try not to say "what?" if I can help it. At the very least, I'll try "what was that?", but usually I try to repeat what they said back to them, with as many words as I was able to figure out (not sure if that counts as echolalia or not). I try to use a lot of hand motions to help clarify what -I'm- trying to say, but not everyone reciprocates. It's very noisy at work, so I always use that as an excuse, but I'm not sure how well it works =)

With people that I'm used to, we usually talk about the same things on a regular basis (when it's work related), so if I didn't quite catch everything, I caught enough to guess and nod my head...which has gotten me in trouble a time or two when I misunderstood...especially if I didn't really catch -anything- and just gave up and pretended to...

With new people, especially if they have accents, I have a really hard time...which is the worst when I'm supposed to be training someone, especially when you combine that with my selective mutism. I'm pretty sure most new people don't care for me one bit

It's the same with me, I often have to tell people to repeat themselves multiple times due to not fully processing what they say and it takes me a pause to come up with a proper response. I often think my response out beforehand to try to prevent that, but as conversations often don't go as I expect that usually doesn't happen.

I find it incredibly hard to focus on a person during a conversation if there's a lot of noise.
I end up craning my head over, cupping my ear and asking them to repeat what they've just said.
It looks like I'm hard of hearing, but it's the exact opposite! I can't shut the other noise out. And if it's a room full of separate conversations, forget about it

Over stimulation with lots of people talking sometimes makes me have a panic attack too. Thinking about getting some noise cancelling ear buds for these special occasions!