ATR's response to HERE on lip-reading.
"The thing about lip-reading is that with most being older people, the skill is more difficult to acquire, and like everything else you need pretty ideal situations for it to work effectively which don't exist in real time. Street-wise tuition is still in its infancy, so no 'real-time' situations and how to deal with them.
By far the biggest drawback to lip-reading is the tuition of it, (Which is hopelessly chaotic and nobody takes it seriously), notwithstanding, those most deaf are frozen out of classes by the more able with hearing, of course, the total lack of any UK system to support it, makes it pointless except for those more able to hear something. Lip-reading mostly demands some sort of effective hearing class-wise.
BSL has a national support set up, BSL interpreters can often be lip-speakers too, albeit few if any of them operate in that respect AS lip-speaking support to HoH etc. Like most awareness advice, it totally relies upon specific circumstances for it to be most effective, and often understates the ideal circumstances for it to work.
The 30% thing often quoted by signers to justify SIGN use, is always misquoted, the 30% figure applies to HEARING people too, in that nobody understands 100% of everything, sign usage was stated as near 5% or less effective outside its support area and effective circumstance, so lip-reading still appears a more effective deaf format to have. The primary 'attraction' of lip-reading is it suggests you are more independent you can dispense with the middleman. I like the idea of the DWP accepting the 30% statistic lol but they don't adjust the welfare awards for the 70% you can miss they!
I did notice with lip-speakers they have a lower limit on timed support, usually, 20 minutes max, and they need a break, whilst sign users claim their help can continue for hours and requires little or no effort to follow. All these claims offer a lot of negativity towards lip-speaking and its application, and facts often get lost, not least sign fails too after a time.
I found personally those with serious loss are unable to make use of a class on lip-reading because the tutor cannot concentrate on those needing the most help, classes then polarised with those with better hearing on one side and the near deaf out of it and told to seek social worker support instead. This is utterly ridiculous because a Social Worker will have no language assist short of a pencil and paper to build upon to help.
Those rejected pupils abandoned lip-reading altogether, full well in the knowledge the Social Services would at best direct them to deaf clubs or even advise them to go back to a lip-reading class again to face more failure and stress. Nobody is really tackling the issues. The high drop out rate of those most deaf, is most evident less than 3 weeks in.
This to my mind suggested those needing lip-reading help are just not going to get it, or even utilise a free class. It's also a fallacy to my mind a teacher of lip-reading can teach up to 12 or 15 people and expect ANY of them to master it to a useful degree given the issues involved of age etc.. You would need one on one and lengthy tuition to make it work, and that isn't currently available or possible. If a teacher is faced by someone who has NO effective way of following speech, is struggling on a psychological level too, then this defeats the tutor approach immediately, they can be out of their depth, such individuals would stop a tutor in his or her track.
What little I acquired was by sheer pain and stress really, self-tuition via trial and error and having a quiet hour every day for a scream or two. The 'attraction' of lip-reading continues unabated, mainly because of sheer denial, those who have severe loss will still try to lip-read or make use of useless hearing aids, use technology ANYTHING rather than be ID'd as deaf. Clearly, there is a deprived sector of people with hearing loss not buying the sign message at all.
The situation whereby a lip-reading class is viewed as some sort of 'hobby' class, and great! if you can learn, no bother if you cannot, as there is no qualification to attain either, makes the whole thing a lottery not to be taken seriously."