Lip reading-- is there anything to it? A deaf co-worker of mine was of the opinion it was just

[raccoon]

guessing. His way of communicating with co-workers was by writing notes.

In a later decade, another deaf co-worker communicated by signing. Some of us at work learned to sign, maybe not fluently but at least enough to communicate.

Has anyone here ever known a deaf person in RL who really was able to communicate well just by lip reading? IMO, if there are such people they are rare.

[unpossibles]

1. I would agree it's educated guessing

That said, I am a bit hard of hearing and can understand people better if I can see them talking.

[rebel with a cause]

16. You and me too.

Turn your back to me and you will be heard but you may not be understood. :)

[Rambis]

2. I learned how

when I was little and slowly lost all hearing in both ears due to an infection. I was found out one day when the teacher spun me around and was red faced yelling at me but I couldn't hear a thing she was saying. I didn't even know what was happening at the time but I adapted well enough to answer questions at school and at home. First thing I heard after my operation was a bird singing outside my window. I love music and cherish being able to hear simple things.

[closeupready]

17. Wow, I am so glad you've gotten your hearing back.

:hi:

[Rambis]

18. Cheers

:beer:

[Deep13]

3. I've known a few...

...but my guess is that it is not as accurate as hearing the spoken word. That episode of Seinfeld where Marlee Matlin does lip reading for George and Jerry is an example.

[Maine-ah]

4. one of our dishwashers is deaf

he's also my brother's roommate. Yes he communicates with all of us through reading our lips. He's damn good at it too. When he was little he had some hearing with use of a hearing aid. He's 22 now, and is completely deaf.

[Roon]

15. When you said that one of your dishwashers is deaf

I thought..how can a major appliance be deaf?

[fizzgig]

5. my sister has pretty severe hearing loss and reads lips

i'm sure some of it is educated guessing, but it's worked well for her

[PRETZEL]

6. Not so much somebody that was deaf

my cousin was a teacher in a school for deaf children. She used both sign and lip reading for her students.

Her daughter also was very adept at both.

Not to be insensitive, but witnessing an argument in sign language was an experience.

[MissMillie]

7. I keep thinking of that Seinfeld episode

Where George gets Marlee Matlin to read some woman's lips and Marlee tells him that she asked some guy to sleep w/ her... when what the woman had asked the guy to help her clean up w/ the party and would he sweep w/ her.

[gmoney]

12. I think I could lip read the difference between "sleep" and "sweep"

But then again, I'm sure perceived context also plays a huge part in it.

[Demoiselle]

8. "Accents" can be problematic for lip readers, or so I've heard.

If you learn to lip read in Ohio-accented American English, for example, you may have trouble with a Southern Drawl or vice versa. Or an English English accent...etc.
But I've always been under the impression that good lipreaders are really very accurate, regardless of how much is well trained guessing. "Will you sweep with me?" is a phrase that's only likely to appear in a Seinfeld script, after all.

[hippywife]

9. Yep.

The wife of one of my husband's friends reads lips. We never had a communication problem.

[av8rdave]

10. I didn't think so, but I was watching the Cardinals - Giants game earlier this year on TV

In the closing minutes of the game, the Cards sent Matt Lienart in to take the last couple of snaps. They apparently told him to take a knee, and I could read his lips very clearly:

He said, "Are you $#@&ing kidding me?"

[rcrush]

11. Maybe when we are done here we can sweep together?

I would love to sweep with you!

[Bucky]

13. Try this experiment. Wave to someone across the room, scowl at them, and mouth "vacuum"

They will not think you're saying "vacuum".

Some things can be mouthed. I doubt HAL could read lips good enough to know Dave planned on shutting him down.

[GreenPartyVoter]

14. I have a hearing loss and read lips, but it's to help me piece together what the sounds I heard

probably were. Sometimes I can read lips without sound, but lots of times I have no clue esp if I have no context. (Same applies to hearing the words. No context makes it much harder to figure out what was said. I usually wind up with something bizarre like, "Give the cat a bath with a hockey stick." LOL)

But yeah, I really have to read lips to get by. When I can't see a person's face I say "what?" a whole lot more. Phone calls can be pretty tricky because of that.

[LeftyMom]

21. Same here. Mostly I just watch for confirmation of what I think I'm hearing.

For the most part I get along fine as long as I'm talking to somebody in person and there's not a ton of background noise. Phone calls I can usually manage as long as the person doesn't have an unusual accent and enunciates reasonably well, again provided there's no background noise on either end. On the phone I tend to compensate by repeating things back for confirmation.

[applegrove]

19. I remember driving home from a basketball tournament in high school. One of the girls

on our team and in the car was deaf. We stopped at a stop sign and all turned behind us to another carload of people from out team. The was a bright light shining through their car and you could see everybody's profile. You could see they were speaking. All of a sudden the deaf girl birst out laughing at what someone had said. We asked her what the girl in the other car had said that was so funny and she refused to tell us. What a switch that was from being on the basket ball court where she couldn't even hear the whistle. You had to run and put a hand on her to stop her playing if she didn't see the play stop. Such a power difference it is to have such different abilities.

[jmm]

20. One of my coworkers is deaf and can read lips.

Sometimes if I see he's talking to somebody I'll stand behind them and silently tell jokes. I've "said" thinks to him from across a room that he's told me he understands better than a few people at our company with accents.