John, This Is Why Your Brain Gets Tired Listening to Accents
A response that turned into something much deeper.
Dear John,
A little while ago, an admin tagged me in a post to see if I could answer your question from an audiology and auditory processing perspective, that is, why some of us have such a hard time understanding people with accents, especially when others seem to manage just fine.
I gave you a quick answer. It was honest, but it was also rushed. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized it deserved something deeper. Because this isn’t only about accents. It’s about how language works, how much energy listening can take, and how communication access isn’t evenly distributed.
So here’s the real answer. Not just for you, but for anyone who has sat in a conversation pretending to follow while their brain quietly hit overload.
⸻
Accents Disrupt Predictability
Language relies on pattern recognition. When someone speaks, your brain isn’t decoding each sound from scratch. It’s making educated guesses based on rhythm, timing, stress, and prior exposure. That’s what makes real-time comprehension possible.
An accent, or a dialect, introduces variation. Maybe the vowels sound different. Maybe the pace changes or the emphasis falls in unfamiliar places. Maybe some syllables are reduced or shifted. The pattern changes, and your brain has to stop and reorient.
Some people handle that variation easily. Others don’t. And for neurodivergent people, especially those with attention differences, auditory processing challenges, sensory sensitivity, or language exposure gaps, that extra decoding step can be exhausting.
⸻
Experiences Vary Across Neurodivergence
Some autistic people can mimic accents effortlessly. Others struggle to decode them. ADHD may impact sustained attention more than phoneme recognition. Auditory processing disorder is actually a broad category that includes several different kinds of listening challenges, not one single issue. And trauma can change the way the nervous system responds to voices entirely, especially if the tone, rhythm, or intensity reminds someone of a past threat.
So while many neurodivergent people find accented or unfamiliar speech more effortful, the reasons for that effort are not all the same. That’s why generic advice doesn’t always help. Understanding your own system matters more than trying to follow a universal rule.
⸻
Bias Plays a Role Too
Understanding difficulty doesn’t always come from the sound itself. Sometimes it comes from what we’ve learned to expect. People tend to rate speech as harder to follow when they think the speaker is foreign, even if the content is identical. These expectations are shaped by stereotypes, familiarity, and unspoken ideas about what “correct” speech sounds like.
If a listener has been taught, even subtly, that certain accents are less educated or less professional, that bias influences effort. The brain unconsciously disengages or resists adapting. And for someone who has already been told that their own way of speaking is wrong, this dynamic can be emotionally triggering as well as cognitively draining.
Addressing listening fatigue includes addressing those internalized ideas, not just trying to train our ears harder.
⸻
Shared Responsibility in Communication
Most strategies for understanding accents focus entirely on the listener. And while practicing comprehension skills can help, communication is never one person’s job.
It’s reasonable to ask someone to rephrase something. It’s appropriate to say, “Can you repeat that at a slower pace?” or “I think I missed that, could you clarify?” We build access by normalizing those requests.
It’s also okay to ask for written follow-up, captions, or summaries when conversations move too fast. These tools exist for a reason. They reduce the burden of holding everything in working memory and help people participate more fully, especially in professional and academic settings.
When we share the work of communication, everyone benefits.
⸻
How You Support Yourself Matters
Reducing cognitive load isn’t just about language. It’s about everything your nervous system is managing at the same time.
Do what you can to keep your environment supportive. Face the speaker if possible. Avoid noisy, chaotic spaces when you know listening is going to require more effort. Wear clothes that don’t itch or distract you. Eat beforehand if you tend to crash. Keep movement tools nearby. These things sound small, but they help your brain stay regulated.
Exposure also helps. Watching shows, listening to unfamiliar voices, reading subtitles; all of that gives your brain more examples to work from. Over time, you build a stronger map, and the variation becomes easier to follow.
Music and rhythm training can help some people. They engage the same neural systems that track timing, pitch, and flow in speech. But this doesn’t work for everyone. For people with trauma histories or noise sensitivity, music might be overstimulating. If it’s helpful, use it. If it’s not, that’s okay too. It’s one possible strategy, not a required one.
There are also auditory training programs like Insane Aeroplane by Acoustic Pioneer. These focus on sound discrimination and auditory attention. But while they may help in controlled environments, the research behind them is still limited. For most people, the real skill develops through lived interaction, through trial, fatigue, and gradual recognition of speech patterns in actual conversation.
⸻
Why This Looks So Different from Person to Person
Even within auditory processing disorder, things aren’t as simple as they seem. What we call APD is actually a wide group of different challenges. Some people might have trouble locating sound, others might have trouble decoding speech in background noise, and still others might process speech more slowly even when it’s quiet.
Some do well one-on-one but struggle when things move fast or get noisy. Others can follow videos but lose the thread in live group discussions. The problem isn’t always the speaker. Sometimes it’s the room, the pace, the lack of visual cues, or just how many demands are piling up at once.
Attention also changes things. Some autistic people follow speech clearly when the topic aligns with their interests. But if the subject shifts to something that doesn’t register as relevant, they might tune out… not out of rudeness, but because their brain decided it wasn’t worth tracking. That’s not a character flaw. That’s adaptive prioritization.
I’m autistic with ADHD and have some auditory processing challenges too. I usually do fine in calm settings. But when there’s overlapping sound, or when I’m tired, I lose clarity fast. I can hear you, but I can’t track the meaning. It’s like the words slide off instead of sticking.
This is one of the reasons I include fatigue-based testing when I evaluate people for auditory processing. It’s something most audiologists don’t do, but it makes a huge difference. Someone might perform well early in the session, then start to break down when their brain gets tired. If we only test once, we miss that. I also look at listening effort, not just the score. Two people can get the same result on paper, but one might be coasting while the other is holding on by a thread.
Because understanding someone isn’t just about whether you got the words right. It’s about how hard you had to work to stay connected. And no single moment tells the whole story. You have to look at the full reel to understand someone’s capacity.
⸻
Identity Lives in Language
Accents and dialects aren’t just about how people sound. They reflect where someone is from, how they were raised, who they feel close to, and what kind of spaces they feel safe in.
Some people shift their accent to avoid being stereotyped. Others lose it naturally after years in a different place. But for many, the original accent never disappears. It comes back when they’re tired or emotional or speaking to someone who shares their history. That return isn’t regression. It’s comfort.
Children who move before age ten often adopt the new regional accent, but not always. Some hold onto their first patterns. Some code-switch. Some don’t. It depends on exposure, context, and how their nervous system processes social adaptation.
When someone speaks in a way that’s unfamiliar to you, try to remember that you’re not just hearing a variation. You’re hearing a part of their history, something layered into their body and memory. You’re hearing their sense of home.
⸻
Your Brain Can Still Adapt
The ability to learn new speech patterns doesn’t disappear with age. Adult brains don’t learn the same way as kids, but they still change. Repetition helps. Exposure helps. So does rest, kindness, and pacing.
If you didn’t have access to a rich language environment growing up, or if your brain has to work harder to make sense of speech now, that’s real. But it’s not fixed. You can still build fluency over time.
You are not stuck.
⸻
This Isn’t Just About Listening. It’s About Access.
When we talk about accent fatigue, we are also talking about who gets to belong in a conversation. If understanding someone costs you everything, that’s not your fault. That’s a sign the system was never designed with your brain in mind.
True accessibility isn’t about pushing people to keep up. It’s about making space so no one has to strain just to be part of the room.
That might mean more captions. More summaries. A slower pace. Room for repetition without embarrassment. It might mean that communication shifts slightly to include more written or visual tools. None of that is unreasonable.
We already do this in other areas. We build ramps. We add subtitles. We dim the lights. This is just the language version of that same care.
⸻
You Deserve to Understand Without Exhaustion
If you feel like everyone else is sprinting through conversation while you’re stuck at the start line, it’s not because you’re lazy or broken. Your system is carrying more.
You don’t need to mask harder or push through it all alone. You can ask for help. You can pace yourself. You can take breaks. You can build your capacity slowly.
Understanding an accent, a dialect, or a fast-moving voice takes time. It’s a skill, not a character trait.
You deserve access. You deserve communication that respects your brain. And you deserve to feel included without needing to burn yourself out just to stay in the conversation.
With respect,
Dr. Rae
