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What It's Like to Read Lips
What It's Like to Read Lips
One common misconception about Deaf and Hard of Hearing individuals is that each one is able to lip read effectively. Although in some cases, DHH individuals have developed this skill to a certain extent, being able to read lips is a complex skill that is influenced by a variety of factors. Watch the video, "What It's Like to Read Lips", to get a sense of the complexity of the skill and to understand what your DHH students may be experiencing.
Helpful Tips to Remember
Helpful Tips to Remember
- Certain sounds are easier to differentiate than others. Sounds made at the front of the mouth are easiest to read while ones made in the middle of the mouth or in the throat are more challenging for people to identify.
- Homophones can be tough as well. Married and buried would read the same to a speech reader.
- Moustaches, beards, poor lip movement, ‘dead’ faces are all tough for speech readers.
- Body language and facial demonstrations are important to the reader as well as they provide cues for them to process information from.
- Distance, clarity with speech development, and a variety of other factors can help the reader to experience greater success with speech reading.
Further Information
Further Information
Below is a link to an article from the Victorian Deaf Society, located out of Australia. In this article, the four main issues in speechreading (lipreading) are discussed and how to best address these issues to ensure communication is not lost between the DHH individual and those they are trying to communicate with.
- Take a look at the following pdf from the Victorian Deaf Society out of Australia.
- The four main issues that need to be considered with speech (lip) reading are:
- The nature of speech
- The speaker
- The environment
- The speechreader
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