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How many here have learned to read lips?

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Thank you Anita… I recall many years ago, at an end of term party for our sign language class, ( British Sign Language) it was either intermediate or Level 1, they played a game of silent whispers, basically about 10 people stood in line, with 9 of them facing the opposite direction, you tapped the next person to you, they turned round,
And the first person whispered a small story to them, and so it continued down the line, in this case they signed a story down the line… Absolutely hilarious watching this signed story, gradually then completely change, and it eventually morphed into a different story entirely… Those of us whom lip read, which includes most of the worlds population, non do it mostly subconsciously, especially in noisy situations, everyone looks for visual clues, especially your eyes & facial expressions, body language, lip reading, but when covid struck, with the dreaded mask’s, my A.uD was lost, she struggled badly with masks, and she had pitch perfect hearing, lip reading is a visual aid, to assists us to better understand a conversation, amazingly between 70 and 93% of all communication is nonverbal, please see link below… Very interesting article. Cheers Kev :wink:

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In reply to @kevels55

Kev, I remember doing that in class back about grade 7, a few lifetimes ago. Story changed…I think none of us were hard of hearing.
DaveL

I do for sure. I’ve worn aids since I was a little kid and self-taught myself to read lips then. I used to be a bit of a punk at school and turn my aids off in class back in 1st and 2nd grade, then force myself to just go off of reading my teacher’s lips, with all the attendant issues that came from a 7 year old doing that. :rofl:

Between that and reading lips on TV and matching the motions to what I was hearing, I’d estimate I’d self-taught myself to around 90% lip reading proficiency at the time.

As I got older and hearing aid performance got better, I relied less on reading lips, and as such, my proficiency has definitely declined. I still habitually look at lips when I’m talking with folks today, but I’d say my proficiency is probably down to 50-60% or so just from disuse due to my aids being good enough that I generally don’t have to read lips to understand what others are saying.

Everybody lipreads @habu987, not just the of this world or indeed the profoundly Deaf… Approximately only 30% of all words are clearly distinguishable on the lips, the rest is good guesswork in conjunction whatever contextual information we have, as we follow the flow of the conversation… The proverbial spanner can be thrown into this mix, when someone in the conversation group, changes the subject, and we missed that jump, our brain is still engaged on the previous subject, and ultimately we will guess wrongly… I was trained in sign language, and lip reading, and the later isn’t an exact science, it is a very useful aid in assisting us to communicate though… But, the concentration levels required for good lip reading, are extremely high, not to mention, it’s very tiring! Cheers Kev :wink:

In reply to @anihan

A feature with tv here…video and audio are often a minute or more out of synch. Drives me nuts. Reading lips? Forget-about-it.

And…local station has taken to have their staff sit facing the person they are interviewing. I change channels…

DaveL
Toronto

In reply to @kevels55

I began a course in basic lip reading which was really great but my goodness after an hour everyone was absolutely fried. The tutor used to have a guest or talk about equipment or hearing aids or whatever might be interesting/relevant to give us a break.

There is, I gather, a real shortage of tutors these days, certainly in Scotland.

Yep, a shortage In everything up here, especially in the Highlands! Most services do not recruit after folks retire, or move on… The workload increases, so the rest move on, or go off sick with burnout, until the whole service is a shambles, and even when the council does recruit, it takes 6 to 9 months to get someone in post… Certainly, if it’s mental health, or , these services receive the least priority! Cheers Kev :wink:

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