Hearing problems?

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I think my hearing is fine. I can hear soft sounds, and sounds at different frequencies. But I often misunderstand what others are saying, or have trouble understanding what they are saying, especially when there is background noise. It has become something of a joke in my family, because I always mishear everyone. Could this be an auditory processing disorder?

Being unable to concentrate on what someone is saying when there is background noise is not rare in autistic people, from what I have read. It comes from the fact that some autistic people can be highly sensitive to sensations of all kinds, and that would include our hearing. Autist's can either be overly-sensitive to noise, or not sensitive enough. Google "autistic people highly sensitive to touch/noises" or something like that, and you will find a slew of articles that you can read more about it.

It can also be that nobody can understand what a particular person is saying without context. If you were to record it and listen to it over and over again you still may not be able to understand it. But, if you were to record a video you could get body language clues and read their lips. And, family members have a memory of what has been said in the past, which allows them to fill in the "blanks." But Aspies may have difficulty doing that, because they know they didn't actually hear anything.

I have the same problem when there are multiple voices. I don't have this problem when there are multiple noises though. Here is an article that might help explain, if it is the same thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocktail_party_effect

In a crowded environment, I have a problem listening to a single conversation. I found that by looking at their lips while they are talking, my ability to hear what they are saying improves.