Lip reading is a vital tool for many people with hearing loss. Being deaf all my life, lip reading became a self taught mechanism to understand speech. My family has memories of me from a very young age, holding their faces in front of mine when I couldn’t understand what was being said. As my hearing worsened, my reliance on lip reading grew. Lip reading is not an exact science, there are many variables which make it harder or easier. Such as the speech is too fast, heavy accents, background noise, mumbling or lack of expression. I know that without lip reading, I miss the majority of conversation. I wear 2 hearing aids for my severe to profound deafness and the option to ‘turn these up’ is not a solution. Sound would simply become a distorted, painful noise. Lip reading provides me with clarity and context.
Lip reading, also known as speech reading, is actually about far more than watching mouth patterns. It requires observation, visual interpretation and also contextual understanding. Sign language, facial expressions, eyebrows and eye contact, gestures and body language all come together, making deaf people highly visually perceptive.
Lipreading Techniques and Skills
Visual Attention: to lip read, we focus intently on the speakers face. Eye contact of the speakers face is crucial to pick up on mouth patterns and expressions.
Contextual Cues: not all words (or people) are easy to lip read. However, in the context of a sentence we may narrow down a ‘most likely’ word, given the situational cues or the previous and following words.
Phonetic Awareness: Understanding a language and the pronunciation is important to be able to understand lip patterns. Being able to recognise different lip patterns for different letters and words improves with practise but there will always be words which aren’t possible to lip read due to similar lip patterns – such as ‘bop’, ‘mop’ and ‘pop’.
Facial Expressions and Gestures: face expressions, body language and gestures all back up the spoken word with extra cues about tone and emotion – all assisting with the overall understanding of what’s being said. Advanced lip readers may also pay attention to movement of the neck and throat.
Lip Reading or Speech Reading?
Both ‘lip reading’ and ‘speech reading’ refer to the understanding of the mouth and tongue patterns used in speech, as well as gestures and body language. However, because ‘lip reading’ might imply just reading of the mouth, some people prefer to say ‘speech reading’.
Is Lip Reading Difficult?
Lip reading is very difficult and very inaccurate. There are various estimates about the success of lip reading – none of them good, from only around 20% of words successfully lipread to still a very low 40%.
Can I Teach Myself Lip Reading?
Many deaf people are ‘self taught’ lip readers. That is to say, we have done it without classes and therefore wouldn’t consider ourselves experts at it (I’m not sure anyone is an ‘expert’ if so much language is not lip-readable). If you have recent hearing loss or want to brush up on your skills, there are various courses available which you can join to boost your skills. Practice being as observant as possible during your daily conversations.
Lip Reading Tips
I’ve spent my life lip reading. Not that I knew I was doing it. It was simply a matter of comprehension for me – ‘look at me when you’re having a conversation with me’. As a child, I’d sometimes forget it was a two-way thing. I’d call out to people in another room and then get annoyed when they called out back to me. That wasn’t really fair on them, or myself. I also spent family walks in my own world. Hiking or even a leisurely stroll is not helpful to a lip-reading conversation (I have tried walking backwards to join in a conversation behind me and also given up whilst walking single file down a small bridle path). But there are some things you can do to help ensure you have a better chance to lip read:
- In a meeting: whether it’s at work or in a restaurant or event, position yourself where you can see everyone in good lighting. If there is a window or strong lighting, make sure they are facing the lighting rather than you, to prevent them from looking like a silhouette. It might not seem too bright to begin with, but your eyes can adjust making it very difficult.
- If you are lip reading and miss something which has been said a couple of times, asking someone to rephrase it can be very helpful – different words can be clearer to lip read.
- Be aware that lipreading takes concentration and can be tiring. If possible, try to take breaks or rest up if you know you have an event coming up.
- Advocate for yourself: it’s not always easy, we don’t always want to be ‘that person’ that has special requests but try to anticipate your needs – for example, put yourself down for a front row seat if that’s an option. Ask people not to cover their mouths. Consider asking ‘Please could you rephrase that’ or ‘Please could you repeat that a bit slower’.
However accurate (or inaccurate) lip reading is, I know I couldn’t manage without it. I have very limited ability in sign language, but when conversing with my sign language friends it’s often lip reading that helps to bridge the gaps in my knowledge and helps me to learn more signs. When I’m in the hearing world, lip reading is a bonus because occasionally the tables are turned – and I’m the one who can have a conversation in a noisy environment when even my hearing friends are struggling to hear each other.
Our hearing loss and deaf community is based online, in our own app on Discord, so that we can welcome everyone; wherever you are on your deaf journey. You can join us here: Deaf Club and we look forward to welcoming you and finding out your thoughts on lip reading.
