I’ve been seeing the use of the phrase “functinally illiterate”, and it got me thinking that I don’t think there is such a thing when it’s speech instead of the written word. There are plenty of instances I can think of where I or someone I knew was simply not capable of or didn’t want to try to understand something that was said. Is there something that means not bring able or refusing to comprehend speech when that person is fluent in the language being spoken?
I don’t have an exact match to what your looking for, but a couple things come to mind.
Having “selective hearing” is joke condition: when someone fails to recognize that another (usually a partner or a parent) is speaking to them or fails to comprehend what was said, but is otherwise sufficiently capable of holding a conversation.
The implication is that they are able (or choose) to ignore questions and requests when they don’t wish to answer or undertake them.
“Willful ignorance” or “being willfully ignorant” is when someone refuses to engage in understanding something when given the opportunity or discounts arguments that challenge their presuppositions.
This isn’t exclusive to verbal communication but it does imply they are some sort of discourse that they are choosing to ignore.
I just thought of Functionally Auditorily Myopic, but perhaps that is misleading.
I don’t hear the comment because I need to turn down the music in my head to listen
I have ADHD and on the surface it looks like that, but I have something akin to auditory processing disorder, in two ways. Like sometimes I just can’t comprehend what has been said even though I can hear it. Also if I don’t bring my full attention to something I would think that I got the entire verbal command but actually end up not getting parts of it. To the point I ask my teachers to write on the board instead of dictating instructions.