What's that you're saying?

[Sportster]

. . .

 

[Neat Hedgehog]

I know exactly what you're talking about. This has happened to me my entire life, and happens more frequently with people I am not accustomed to listening to, or people I am talking to over the phone. Not only does it sound completely unintelligible, at other times it will sound like something completely different from what they really said. And just like you, I have strangely good hearing; I can hear a pin drop in the woods, and well over the frequency range of most people.

Most people I actually know understand it well enough (finally) that they don't think I'm hard of hearing, so they don't have to shout or talk sloooowwwww. More random people get all bent out of shape and try shouting at me, or act like I'm an idiot because "I don't understand." Of course I don't understand, nothing I heard even formed words. How am I supposed to understand? In the time it takes them to complain and gripe about how I'm "not paying attention" they could have just repeated what they said and we'd be done.

For me, it helps if they don't repeat exactly what they said, though, because there's a high chance it will fail again in the same way. It works best if they paraphrase it.

My father was diagnosed with some kind of defect related to the auditory processing center, though I'm not entirely sure offhand what the specific issue was. My mother knows more about it; she suggested maybe it was related to the issue I have, too.

 

[WildCat]

It's a constant problem of mine, even worse if I'm talking on the phone since the reception around here tends to be average at best. I'll hear sentences at a time, and if I'm lucky I'll be able to process every single bit of it if it's not completely jumbled which is the issue - words flooding my ear have this tendency to zip right over my head and I'm only picking up bits and pieces here and there. I think this is called an auditory processing disorder, which if I wasn't diagnosed then then I would most certainly qualify as such.

There's no issue with my range of hearing, though - it's excellent, in fact, when I'm not having to process spoken language so quickly. Otherwise, I'd prefer to do most of my communication through text or writing if the chance presents itself, lest people don't mind having to repeat theirselves or speak in a clearer tone of voice.

 

[supernova]

It happens to me if I'm nervous and someone speaks to me in front of other people - calling across a room for example. It's as though someone's speaking in a foreign language.