Stanford Magazine:
Lipreading, which makes one sense do the work of another, is a skill daunting to describe. Rachel Kolb, deaf since birth, shares its mysteries.
Interesting article from the point of view of a deaf person. I’m sure I’ve made the same mistake – assuming if a deaf person can read lips, it’s easy for them.
Great article … I too never realized how hard it is for lip readers. I am trying to learn Japanese, and when I’m with a bunch of Japanese speakers, I probably understand 30 or 40% of what is being said and need to fill in the blanks to try and make sense of the conversation. I wonder if that is a similar situation to a lip reader.
I find it to be an incredibly draining process, and I have trouble paying attention to a conversation for very long. If I am in a situation where I need to listen for very long, I end up being so tired afterwards. I can imagine how tough that must be for lip readers.
being partially deaf, not realizing the level of hearing i had lost over time until i was tested when i couldn’t hardly understand a new co-worker. Without hearing aids, i usually hover around 80% comprehension, and up to 95 with hearing aids – but that 95% includes being able to see someone speaking and adding lip reading to the mix. If you take away the ability to look someone in the face, i’m probably somewhere on the order of understanding half of what is said with hearing aids.
In a noisy restaurant? Forget it. I’m just going to sit back and watch everyone else and laugh when they do.
And funny enough, i just completed a Japanese college course, and found it to be totally useless for me to comprehend spoken Japanese. I can read and write Japanese fairly easily now (not Kanji!), but it was impossible to really understand anything being said because i certainly can’t understand all the sounds just with my ears, and even trying to add the lip reading was making no progress. I’m hoping that going and watching young children’s programming, i’ll be able to get my Japanese comprehension up with my english comprehension for conversation.