ANYTHING but sign language?

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."

10 things you need to know about lip-reading.

1. There appears to be no scientific basis for the frequently quoted claim that lipreading is only 30% accurate. If you think about it, there are many differences in time, place and ease of understanding. Two lipreaders conversing together would get 100%. Nobody can lipread in the dark. 0%. It isn't even a ballpark figure.

2. There are specialised interpreters called Lipspeakers. They are people who are trained to repeat English in such a way as to be very easy to understand. Mostly you get every word but occasionally they may paraphrase to keep up. They can be booked, for example for your PIP assessment if you don't sign. Quite often they are BSL terps as well although the two skills are separate.

3. Lipreading lessons are available all over the country but because it is so specialised you may have to travel some distance to find a class. There is some doubt about whether these are helpful but people do ask for them quite a lot.

4. If you have some hearing then lipreading and your residual hearing will work together to give you a much better comprehension rate. Any amount of hearing however small adds to the picture of speech that you are getting. It all adds up and it is a good reason for using hearing aids. Put it all together and your life is much easier.

5. You can lipread the TV if the picture is clear enough. A large screen TV is easier than a small one. Now you have an excuse for getting that 60 inch job. News programmes are good lipreading practice because the newsreaders are trained in speaking clearly and they usually face the camera all the time.

6. To maximise your lipreading potential try to make it easy for yourself. For example in a lecture get right down the front, close up. Nobody likes to sit in the very front but you have the best excuse in the world.

Try to arrange things so that you are face to face with other people in a good light. The worst place in the world is a dark nightclub with a band playing in the background. Try and pick a table with a candle...

7. People will forget. Oh yes, they do! Even your children will forget to face you and speak clearly. Try to be patient and not throw things at them.

8. Deaf people are usually able to "speak without voice". This is a peculiarly deaf thing and essentially it is 100% lipreading, no sound. Deaf people learn at school to turn off their voice and speak soundlessly. Very useful in a deaf group for making sarcastic remarks about hearing stupidity.

9. Lipreading is often done by hearing people. It isn't a specifically deaf thing. For example, many rock musicians are quite good lipreaders because they learn to talk despite the ear-shattering noise. Many factory workers rely on lipreading because of noisy machinery. Hearing people often talk to each other through a closed window like a phone booth. A lot of hearing people watch each other's faces. That is lipreading.

10. When you make an application for PIP remember that the DWP does not regard lipreading as a reliable means of communication. If you put on your form that you are 100% reliant on lipreading, as many profoundly deaf people are, then you will be treated as if you cannot understand at all. This scores you points because you cannot communicate "safely, repeatably, to a good standard, in a reasonable time for most of your time."

SOURCE

App interprets baby cries for deaf parents.

Santa finds deaf boy's CI for Xmas...

A doting mother has shown the moment her meningitis survivor son received cochlear implants from their elf on the shelf. Ben Farrimond, 13, almost died when he contracted meningitis at just 10 months old and has since been left profoundly deaf due to the condition. 

To assist his hearing, the teenager wears two cochlear implants which enable him to have almost perfect hearing. But after he lost one of his £3,500 (about $6300) implants on December 16, Ben was left in disarray and unable to hear out of his right ear. However, when he woke up on December 19, Ben was shocked to see his elf on the shelf had ‘found’ his ‘magic ear’ and returned it in the form of an early Christmas present. 

“Ben was with his grandparents laying wreaths at the cemetery when he lost the implant whilst messing around with his brother,” Ben’s mother Samantha, from St Helen’s in Merseyside, said. “When he came back for dinner later that evening I noticed that the implant had gone and immediately I went into a panic. “We immediately went and searched the cemetery, but didn’t find anything for two days. “Luckily when we returned on Tuesday night, I managed to find the implant and quickly hide it so that Ben didn’t see it, as I had an idea. 

“Then the next morning, when he ran downstairs to see what the elves had been up to, Ben was so shocked that his ‘magic ear’ had been returned and couldn’t believe how magical it was.”

SOURCE