It is no secret that people with difficulty hearing experience some degree of difficulty communicating in social situations, even with hearing aids. It is very easy for them to miss a word, or a cue, or sometimes complete conversations. Living in a fast-paced, challenging world as ours is tough as it is. While hearing aids greatly increase your ability to understand conversations, learning to read visual cues and understand basic speech or lip reading can really give your ears more information.
Lip or speech reading, is the art of being able to see speech sounds. People well-versed in this use facial expressions, gestures, and surroundings to help them understand what is being said. It helps people who are hearing impaired to cope better with their hearing loss.
Not every word needs to be understood for lip reading to be useful. Lip reading will help people with a bruised hearing capability to understand more around them. It particularly aids people who previously had normal hearing to participate better in conversations.
Developing the ability to lip read requires practice, patience, and perseverance. Once the ability to lip read is developed, it needs to be used constantly otherwise the skill may decrease. When speaking to a hearing-impaired person, it is important that you face them, speak clearly and do not cover your mouth.
Limitations
The art comes with its difficulties and limitations. They include:
Fast normal speech
Covered speech movements
Dissimilar speech patterns
In no way does lip reading make up for the hearing that has been lost. It is not possible for a person to consistently understand everything that is said by lip reading alone. However, it is a useful skill for the impaired.
