What is Lipreading?

Mainly used by deaf people for effective communication; lip reading is following the lip movements of a speaker to understand what he or she is saying. For this reason it is also known as speech reading. As well as the lips, the movements of the tongue, the jaw, the eyes, the face, the hands and the body are also followed. Knowing the context in which the speaker is speaking makes it easier for a deaf person to fill in the gaps about what is being said. Ever since it was first used to rehabilitate injured WWI soldiers, lip reading has been taught in many schools for the deaf.

• You need training to recognize individual facial or mouth movement for particular speech sounds. This takes time. Try practicing by trying to follow a movie with the sound turned off.

• Learning lipreading is an ongoing process. Different people have different types of expressions and ways of speaking.

• Ask people to look at you directly when they speak.

• Pay attention to the way the speaker articulates words, at the mouth movements,tongue movements and jaw movements of the speaker.

• Don't overlook facial expressions, nods, hand gestures and eye movements. All these can convey information about the subject being spoken as well as the mood of the speaker.

• Try to understand the context of the conversation.

• Lipreading can make it easier for deaf people follow conversations.

• As lipreading makes it possible for deaf people to participate in everyday conversations, they don't feel cut off and isolated from mainstream life.

• Participating in conversations by way of lipreading helps improve communication skills.

• The ability to interact with people develops self-confidence

• It is beneficial in noisy places like clubs or restaurants where a hearing aid might prove ineffective.

• In loud crowded environments, lip reading can be useful for anyone.

• Lip reading is difficult for born-deaf people who have never heard the spoken language.

• In a group environment, where several people are talking at the same time, it is difficult to follow the lip movements of all the speakers. So the deaf person may fail to understand where the conversation is headed.

• Glottal consonants are impossible to follow; they don't require lip movement, but are articulated inside the mouth or throat.

• Many speech sounds have the same facial and mouth positions. This makes it hard for the lip reader to distinguish the sounds. According to language experts, only about 30 to 40% of English sounds, and often the words that use them, are distinguishable from sight alone.

• Lipreading reading requires the lipreader to concentrate and focus on the speaker's lips to follow every word spoken. This can get rather wearisome. Many deaf people prefer using other communication means like gesturing, miming, and writing.