Challenging to listen to someone talk for long periods

This is one of my biggest barriers in university. After around 20-30 minutes it stops being understandable and starts being like listening to a foreign language where I can hear the sounds but can't actually make any meaning of them. After getting my hearing checked because I was told to and discovering that it's my brain that's the problem, I got a few key skills to help me, especially as unlike some of the other tricks here, I did actually need to know what they were saying.

Recording and transcription software allowed me to return to it afterwards to cover bits I'd missed. For me these were provided through DSA but honestly the Teams transcription and automatic captions are some of the best I've seen. 

Pre reading was really important, creating summarised notes that I could then annotate with specific examples. Knowing the basics of what would be covered allowed me to catch up understanding if I needed to turn off my listening brain for 10 mins in the lecture.

On occasions where I couldn't pre-read, having something to do with my hands was really important. Lack of access to pre-reading made seminars completely inaccessible to me, I just couldn't understand the words, but for things like revision sessions where people knew me better, having things like crochet to do made a massive difference and would increase my understanding from 20 mins to 40 mins. 

Understanding my limits was also important. I had one year where I had 3, 1hour lectures back to back. This just wasn't doable for me, so I alternated between going to the 1st and 3rd one day, and then just the 2nd the next, using lecture recordings to catch up. This was sometimes problematic when lecture recordings failed, and there was a period of 4 weeks where I went and sat in the back of the room doing different work while my laptop recorded the lecture for me because the departments systems weren't working. 

Overall I've had to get really good at making my needs known, because otherwise I just can't access lectures at all, and I suspect this will continue to be a challenge for the rest of my life, with things like long meetings and research conferences. I'm hoping that I can continue to find ways to work around it, and that by making my needs known early, people won't have time to get cross about it they'll just accept it. I find this attitude works for many things.

This is one of my biggest barriers in university. After around 20-30 minutes it stops being understandable and starts being like listening to a foreign language where I can hear the sounds but can't actually make any meaning of them. After getting my hearing checked because I was told to and discovering that it's my brain that's the problem, I got a few key skills to help me, especially as unlike some of the other tricks here, I did actually need to know what they were saying.

Recording and transcription software allowed me to return to it afterwards to cover bits I'd missed. For me these were provided through DSA but honestly the Teams transcription and automatic captions are some of the best I've seen. 

Pre reading was really important, creating summarised notes that I could then annotate with specific examples. Knowing the basics of what would be covered allowed me to catch up understanding if I needed to turn off my listening brain for 10 mins in the lecture.

On occasions where I couldn't pre-read, having something to do with my hands was really important. Lack of access to pre-reading made seminars completely inaccessible to me, I just couldn't understand the words, but for things like revision sessions where people knew me better, having things like crochet to do made a massive difference and would increase my understanding from 20 mins to 40 mins. 

Understanding my limits was also important. I had one year where I had 3, 1hour lectures back to back. This just wasn't doable for me, so I alternated between going to the 1st and 3rd one day, and then just the 2nd the next, using lecture recordings to catch up. This was sometimes problematic when lecture recordings failed, and there was a period of 4 weeks where I went and sat in the back of the room doing different work while my laptop recorded the lecture for me because the departments systems weren't working. 

Overall I've had to get really good at making my needs known, because otherwise I just can't access lectures at all, and I suspect this will continue to be a challenge for the rest of my life, with things like long meetings and research conferences. I'm hoping that I can continue to find ways to work around it, and that by making my needs known early, people won't have time to get cross about it they'll just accept it. I find this attitude works for many things.