It’s National Lipreading Awareness Week, so why not test out your skills?
Here’s a video our Editor Charlie Swinbourne made back in 2011 for the BBC’s Ouch website. You can read the article that accompanied it by clicking here.
Good luck!
To find details of lipreading classes or for help with any other hearing loss issues, contact Hearing Link’s helpdesk at helpdesk@hearinglink.org or 0300 111 1113 to text: 07526 123255
To try Hearing Link’s online lipreading test or to submit details of your own lipreading gaffs, visit www.hearinglink.org/lipreading-awareness-week The site also gives more information about lipreading and provides links to other helpful sites.
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alison
September 8, 2014
I didn’t get any of the lipreading and I’m thankful that I can sign! (I’m hearing)
Editor
September 8, 2014
And you know me! I didn’t realise I was this hard to lipread… 😉
Old Pah!
September 8, 2014
Ack! As someone who rely on lipreading daily, I couldn’t make sense what was being read.
Must be the accent of the lips… 😉
Natalya Dell
September 8, 2014
I did ok on this when it first got released which isn’t bad for not knowing Charlie at all! 🙂
My hearing aid broke at work last week (I’m having a bad hearing aid life at the moment) and I was amazed at how well I could lipread my boss while walking home with her and another colleague (no sound at all cos without aid I have virtually nothing) and I was able to work out that her children went back to school, she was going out for coffee with a friend who was ill the next day.
Still bloody hard work though and almost entirely dependent on context and knowledge of person, I know boss doesn’t work Wednesdays and it’s start of school term and coffee is kinda obvious and she was speaking more slowly cos I couldn’t hear. They’ve never met me in completely deaf mode before that.
I can’t lipread and walk though – that way lies falling over! I find I either get it, or I don’t cos I don’t usually have no sound lipreading (even my crappy sign language++) and it was a bit like doing 17 things at once with my brain…
Pauline
September 8, 2014
I was pleased I got one and a half, and I haven’t met Charlie:-)
Hartmut
September 8, 2014
Most hearing people do lipread, and are as good as an oralist deaf person do, according to research by Lowell from John Tracy Clinic in the 1950’s. My hearing wife and son are better lipreaders than I.
If you are not good in the first place, you will never gain anything from the lipreading class, beyond lipreading greetings and farewell floskels, common questions (whats your name, where from etc), and the small talk.
Hartmut
Pauline
September 9, 2014
Hartmut, you make a very good point. about the lip reading classes. I have found that you are good at it or not, and no amount of classes is going to make much difference. I have a couple of friends who are very good at it. One of them a while back had been “encouraged” to do lip reading classes and I asked my friend, ‘Why go?’ When after pointing out to her how good her skills were she did see the sense of it. If anything she could have been teaching them:-). Another Deaf friend is incredible at picking up languages and by his own admission, is hopeless at lip-reading. Although I believe there are some tips and improvements you can benefit from with classes; you either have it or you don’t!
Editor
September 9, 2014
Hi Harmut and Pauline, if you read the article I wrote with the video, I went along to a lipreading class and found it was fantastic, particularly for people who have just become more deaf. It’s not just about actual lipreading but also deaf awareness tips, how to help other friends and family be aware of your deafness and so on. On top of that, it reduced isolation for the members. That one experience changed my mind about the worth of lipreading classes for good. Thanks Charlie
Cathy Alexandeŕ
September 8, 2014
Be great to get more of these put up, Charlie! I really enjoyed it and I got them all, but I thought you said: “I love shoes!” Not Elephant shoes! And I thought tortoise was daughter!! All in all not done too badly especially as my lipreading skill has diminished a lot due to using BSL!!
Tim
September 9, 2014
Lip-reading certainly has a place: I don’t think there is much doubt that it can benefit mild to severe, sometimes profound Deaf enormously.
But there are at least two bad things (there are a few others, but I don’t have time here) that you have to watch out for. Firstly, it can feed into the ‘divide and rule’ thing that is sometimes used against Deaf people, making out that some Deaf people are better or are trying harder than others. That’s wrong.
Secondly, sometimes it can put the onus on the wrong person. Why is it the responsibility of the Deaf person – who already has to work very hard to understand things – to understand people? Isn’t it the responsibility of the person doing the talking to make him or herself understood?
Despite being profoundly Deaf, I’ve never had a lip-reading lesson in my life. The van driver who delivers my golf stuff speaks more clearly than some teachers of the Deaf I have come across.
Maybe there should be more clear speech / lip-speaking classes?
Reg Cobb
September 11, 2014
Brilliant! I love it. I was startled when you said your name was Carly! You never said! Does Jo know?! Does she also know you have a tortoise! I’ll certainly use it for any deaf awareness training
DW
September 12, 2014
I got most of those although thought it was elephant juice not elephant shoes, but more because once I saw elephant, I had juice in my head as that’s the phrase I know, not shoes. I also got 1999, but not euro. No context! That’s why context is so important to deaf people!