Reading lips

MDFighter

MDFighter

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I'm trying to learn how to read lips. My heading is going down hill fast and I think it will help me keep communicating with people at work and especially family members who are not willing to learn ASL. Does anyone have tips on how to learn? I know it's hard and is going to take time but I have no idea how to go about it. Tips please!
 
Born with a sever profound bilateral deafness of 110 dB, I wasn't allowed to be exposed to ASL so I spent all of my life lip reading until I learned ASL at 25 years old (17 years ago). I have no idea how I learned since I was 7 months old when my deafness was discovered. I don't know if it is really taught.
 
shel90 said:
Born with a sever profound bilateral deafness of 110 dB, I wasn't allowed to be exposed to ASL so I spent all of my life lip reading until I learned ASL at 25 years old (17 years ago). I have no idea how I learned since I was 7 months old when my deafness was discovered. I don't know if it is really taught.
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When I went to a private school in Boston I had a speech therapist and she would read a book to me voiceless and had to tell her what the book was about . My speech therapist had me read her lips sideways too and I got pretty good at it. When I got to JR high school I would read my teacher and principal lids while they were standing sideway they finally realize what I was doing and held their hands so I could not see their lips. :giggle:
I can't read lips that good anymore but I use to be very good. I read body language too , I leaned that at a very young age so I know when to avoid my dad.
 
I taught myself (or so my mom says) to lip-read at a very young age. So I assume it'd probaly take pratice of course.

Like posted above, muting the T.V would help - the best would probably be the news and the news reporter. Probably try it without CC (closed captioning) at first too.

One tip that might help would be that certain letters form a shape in the mouth. A good example would be the letter O.

Sometimes body language/gestures/visuals also help as lip-reading by itself is hard.

Few times I have to process what is said and figure out what the person is trying to say. If not, I usually ask them to repeat again.

It really depends on the person, sometimes if they speak too fast - will have to ask them to speak a little slower and clearly - which I find helps. Asking them to speak "louder" doesn't help me so much as asking them to speak "slower and clearly".
 
Lip reading is definitely a skill that I've practiced for at least 30 years. It's not impossible, but it is hard when people aren't as articulate with their mouths. I just tell them to write it down when I don't understand them. Make them do the effort.
 
I was taught to lipread with a speech therapist. Takes many years of practice, and even to this day I do struggle with certain people.
 
Maybe try recording a short tv program with Closed Captioning watch and listen to the whole thing.

Then play it back without CC and see if you can read their lips. You rewind if you miss something etc.

Or you can try this with videos etc.

One thing I do is it we are in a large group, I ask my husband what the topic of the discussion is. I have a better chance figuring out what they are saying then.

GOOD LUCK
 
It's usually an acquired skill, though I do so in eye glancing motions since I found an occasional person would feel uncomfortable with their lips being stared at.
 
Even after 40 years of lip-reading, I only get about 30 to 50% of what is being said especially in large groups. There was a teacher collaboration mtg yesterday and I couldn't participate because I had a hard time trying to lipread everyone's lips. I told my boss that this is ridiculous to expect me to participate if they keep forgetting to request an interpreter for me. Cant say much here but I am going to take action to address this issue.
 
If you're HOH...reading lips should be a lot easier than someone who was born profound....I was actually reading lips before I realized it (being HOH)....and became very fluent at it. As you age, (for me)...it's not as easy due to my short attention span and concentration giving me headaches, and eyes tiring out.
 
MDFighter said:
I'm trying to learn how to read lips. My heading is going down hill fast and I think it will help me keep communicating with people at work and especially family members who are not willing to learn ASL. Does anyone have tips on how to learn? I know it's hard and is going to take time but I have no idea how to go about it. Tips please!
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Because I was curious about whether there are any online lessons on lipreading, I googled it, and it turns out there are several (I listed a few below). I don't know how good/useful any of them are, but I just played the first lesson on vowels at Lipreading.org and got them all correct - Hurray! (I've been HOH my whole life and self-taught myself lipreading out of necessity. I've had no formal lessons). I imagine online lessons probably aren't as effective as learning in person, but it's a start. Lipreading works best for me if I can hear at least some of what a person is saying, so I get a bit of context. I use it to help me figure out occasional words that I miss. Lipreading without context or any sound is often only about 30-40% accurate (For example, many words like "bee" and "pea" and "me" can look the same when you're lipreading them).

In case you're interested, here are some websites I found just by googling:

lipreading.org
lipreadingpractice.co.uk
hearinglink.org
 
rockin'robin said:
If you're HOH...reading lips should be a lot easier than someone who was born profound....I was actually reading lips before I realized it (being HOH)....and became very fluent at it. As you age, (for me)...it's not as easy due to my short attention span and concentration giving me headaches, and eyes tiring out.
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RR, at what percentage rate would you say you lip-read correctly?
 
Tousi said:
RR, at what percentage rate would you say you lip-read correctly?
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Lost my hearing at age 14...60/40 before losing it all....as for reading lips, seems I was doing it a very long time and not realizing it...even in public school....So when I became totally deaf, I still could read lips pretty fluently...most people did not realize I was deaf when talking to me....as long as they were facing me...I did very well. I could even read people's lips that were standing in the yard or way across a room. As for the percentage?....at that time I'd give myself an A...:giggle:

Now, the down size of it all...headaches and severally tired eyes. I do not attempt to read lips too much anymore. My boys know ASL and always face me when talking.....
 
MDFighter said:
I'm trying to learn how to read lips. My heading is going down hill fast and I think it will help me keep communicating with people at work and especially family members who are not willing to learn ASL. Does anyone have tips on how to learn? I know it's hard and is going to take time but I have no idea how to go about it. Tips please!
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I can help,please email me at geerkorey@gmail.com so we can setup a time to meet
 
I didn’t realize this post was from 6 years ago,but if you still interested,you can email me
 
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