Hearing People

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I have pretty good hearing, but sometimes when people talk to me it sounds like they have a mouth full of mashed potatos-I can't understand them at all! It drives people crazy when I ask them to repeat what they just said 2 or 3 times. Does anyone else notice this (is it an AS trait) or should I just clean out my ears more?

From what I was told, it is likely an auditory processing problem that can happen independant of Autism/AS or with.

Yes I've noticed the same thing in myself. Depending on the environment, I sometimes have no chance of understanding what people are saying to me.

The worst is when I'm trying to pick up a voice out of a crowd, and that voice has to compete with all the others that are coming in.

I have very variable hearing - like at work last night one of my supervisors was in his office playing the guitar and I could hear that loud and clear - I had to go knock on his door to see what he was doing . . .

But it is very hard for me to hear people in crowded environments and I find that I mishear words on the phone a lot of the time - just as my callers how many times I say 'so is that S as in Sam or F as in Frank' or 'You live on Poly Wood drive? OHHHH - Holly Wood - ok that makes more sence . . .'
This doesn't happen to me enough to make me ineffective, but it seems to happen to me more than my coworkers . . .

Sometimes I have trouble tuning in to what people are saying to me. For example in a restaurant a few years ago, a waitress spoke to me but I didn't hear a thing she said and I had to ask my Mum what the waitress had said. I've had many problems with being in noisy and crowded situations as well. I find my hearing and most other senses fluctuate and can shut down without any warning. I believe auditory processing problems are quite common in people with Autism/Asperger's.

This happens to me, as well. We were actually just discussing this topic (less indepth) in the "words in your head (echolalia/perservation) thread.

It's often a "delayed processing" for me, I hear the person speaking, but the speech holds no meaning at all. I ask them to repeat themselves, and usually before they are able to, I go "ooh ok," because by that time the message has made it through my brain. It feels almost like it's been "translated" from sounds into meaning, and that that translation process is fairly slow.

I also have a horrendous time hearing people in crowds, or over background noise. Especially in a room full of noisy people, its very difficult for me to concentrate on the person talking to me, and understand their words, while ignoring everyone else's.

Another odd thing that happens to me occasionally is that voices will sort of fade in and out. Once, I was at a doctor's office and he was telling me all about a procedure (wisdom-tooth removal) and I could hear some of what he was saying perfectly clearly, but there were moments when his words seemed to fade into meaningless sounds, and then came back again. When I mentioned to my father that I had a hard time understanding him, he said he heard him fine, so it must have been me.

My hearing is intact, so none of this is due to hearing loss. I have more sensitive hearing than most, and some sounds can affect me in odd ways which do not seem to happen to others. I suspect central auditory processing to be a problem.

Here is a link you may all find interesting -> http://www.autistics.org/library/capd.html and http://www.autistics.org/library/logic.html

I often have a hard time differentiating a single sound from a group, just like if I have to look at a person, often their words are lost from my hearing but if I don't have to look at them, I can hear them better because I think it's because I have a hard time doing both hearing/listening and focusing visually.

Hope it helps some.

When I was a kid I have discovered that listening to a sermon in a church required a conscious activity - if I didn't "repeat in my mind" after the priest, I could hear him fine, but all I got was gibberish. I could switch speech comprehension on and off at will. When people talk directly to me, I always attempt to understand them, but sometimes I miss the beginning of what they said, especially if they started talking unexpectedly. This results in a lot of "What did you say?". At times I rely on the "delayed processing", as Civet described, especially when listening to French language. It also happens that I hear a different word than has been said. Another problem is that sometimes I miss completely what the other person is saying to me, because I am thinking about what to say next, instead of listening. My mother believed that I was hard-of-hearing.

Interestingly, processing visual information is also a conscious process. All objects must be "named" to be seen, otherwise they "blend into the background".

The same thing here. Someone will say something to me and I'll be like "what?", and in the process of saying what, often times, what that person just said will suddenly make sense to me.

Song lyrics can be problematic for me too. At my gorcrey stocking job, the muzak system use to play several songs where when I'd listen to them, the lyrics did not seem to make sense at all, but I took it as it was since I trusted what my ears were telling me.

One song the chorus line to me sounded like this

"I'll never go back to that stuff on the wall..."

but once I heard that same song thru a pair of headphones and the chorus line suddenly became much more clearer

"I'll never go back to that circle of one..."

It made MUCH more sense to me. I couldn't imagine what kind "stuff" that would be on a wall that someone would not want to go back to....

that is the perfect description! the best I could ever come up with is it sounds like they are talking underwater

After reading this thread suddenly the way I hear makes sense- I can hear perfectly well but had problems with hearing people talk etc- especially when there is background noise. Interestingly my mum says her and my gran do the same thing so it runs in the family.

magic- everyone thinks Im hard of hearing as well.

I've asked 4 persons so far about that problem.
Only one of them has this Central Auditory Processing Disorder, but not frequently.
My parents don't have this problem.
I'll ask more people and keep a record of their answers. (That's what I wanted to do in the thread 'Words stuck in your head - perservation/echolalia?"

MishLuvsHer2Boys, the links you posted are very interesting.

Deviating ever so slightly from the exact topic, but remaining on topic of CAPD ...

Does anyone else ever get it when someone says something about you, perhaps thinking you can't hear, it doesn't register with you, but you "hear" it clearly after a while - say, 20 minutes to an hour?

Is this a symptom of CAPD?


Back on topic properly, I do often have to say "pardon" to actually interpret speech sometimes.
Occassionally, nomatter how many times the person repeats themselves, I still don't decode what they're saying.
I always thought of this as the speech part of SPLD.

I'm by no means deaf, I have very acute hearing.

Yes! Exactly! There's even one person in my office that I try to avoid simply because I can't understand what he is saying to me. It takes my brain forever, it seems, to finally comprehend the meaning behind the sounds he makes.
My son and grandson also have this difficulty but I've noticed, if I rephrase my questions, sometimes, they catch what I am saying to them.
Example with my grandson: "Are you Thirsty?" he doesn't catch but "Would you like something to drink?" is understandable to him.
Sometimes it's all in the inflection. Emphasis on a particular word in a sentence sometimes is all they need to latch onto the meaning of the words being said (this is all I need sometimes, too).
I have learned to say everything in two different ways (rephrasing my sentences slightly, so that everyone understands) when we are all together. I never noticed I did this until it was pointed out to me by another family member, one day.

I also relate to the delayed processing. Just about the time soemone is telling me again, it clicks. Until then, it's just a meaningless jumble of words!

When I am upset or overwhelmed, for example, someone is trying to talk to me while I have effectively withdrawn into myself and am curling up with pain, it seems like they are assaulting me with sounds and words and they don't even register. I wish they'd just shut up and let me recover, and they drone on and on, piling more words I cannot process until I feel smothered by them.

At work, I have a bad short term memory. I have to ask it back (repeat what I just heard) both to make it comprehensible to myself, and to 'fix' it in my memory so that I can carry it out. "So, two corn dogs, .75# of chicken strips, and half a pound of cooked ham?" People look at me like I am stupid but it works.... The other day I had to ask a guy three or four time what he wanted b/c the music and backround noise in the store was so loud. He then said it very sloooowly and moved his lips exaggeratedly like I was a ret*d!! ! I hated him for that! :X

If someone talks to me when I am zoned out, chances are good it won't register at all..... :-/

I never really noticed how people sound, but I have noticed that I don't do well retaining spoken information. I need to "see" it or read it.

At church, I read along in my missal every prayer and scripture. Otherwise it doesn't "register" just hearing it spoken.

I rarely look at people's eyes when they're talking (big surprise ) but I do intently watch their mouths. Now maybe this is just an avoidance mechanism so I don't have to make eye contact but can still appear to be looking at them (years of having MAKE EYE CONTACT drilled into me! ), or maybe it's because I need to "see" the words as they are being spoken.

I know I don't have a hearing loss - heck, I am always hearing things no one else hears. One night hubby and I were almost asleep and I heard a thump - he heard nothing, of course. I said, Hmmmm, sounds like... one of the cats just jumped in the empty laundry basket downstairs and tipped it off the chair where I had left it. Next morning I came downstairs and the laundry basket was lying on it's side on the floor in front of the chair.

I have the same exact problem! I can never hear what people are saying, and sometimes it takes a while to process.

I always watch TV with closed captions on, and subtitles on DVDs. It helps a lot! I have auditory processing issues, and sometimes it's a lot easier to read it as it's being said.

It bugs me sometimes when I'm watching anime and the subtitles and spoken dialogue differ a lot. The dialogue is usally Americanized, but the subtitles are more basic, less styled English.