Verbal Processing = Listening Ability

Lately, I've found myself using the phrase "verbal processing" in lieu of "listening". My ability to process verbal incoming information via talking and chat, heavily varies from day to day. The times I am more heavily engaged in my internal self-reflection pretty much dictates how much external information I am able to process.
At home with my Partner and Son, I can often listen fairly well because we have a low extraneous noise environment with lots of comfort and predictability. I know that I can stop my train of thought if Younglink asks me a question because it's really easy to find the thought pattern again. There aren't a lot of interruptions.
Stopping an internal train of thought Is somewhat similar to trying to stop a moving train at about ten to twenty miles per hour but I have learned how to do it when necessary.
Listening can be extremely difficult in a noisy environment with people and sounds in the background. I've learned to ask people's to kindly repeat things if I don't catch them and am unable to process.

Growing up, both at school and in my parents home, I often had great difficulty hearing and comprehending verbalizations as the two environments seemed to always be very noisy with multiple peoples, sounds and movements continuously taking place. On more than one occasion I was punished for not "listening" and complying when I seriously had no clue as to what was said to me. I wasn't stupid or an idiot, I just had very sluggish verbal processing skills.
To use a visual analogy, talking...words come towards me and travel half way around a city block and as they travel they turn, twist and form visual pictures so that I can process, listen...so that I can understand what is being said to me. This mechanism has good days and not so good days and continues to vary based on my involvement and engrossment in my internal world.
Learning to speak English did not come natural to me and the same could be said for listening. I was not born equipped to listen to human speech....I had to learn this skill.