[stylist] reading lips

Thu Nov 19 20:33:50 UTC 2009

Very good research, Helene.  However, it still has been proven by your 
research that some deaf people can get away with lip reading while others 
can't.  It is conceivable that what I said yesterday about my friend's 
daughter's friend is correct within your research.  She, like everyone, is 
one person in a big sea.  Even when it comes to genetics you can't say that 
so and so's daughter must be good in science.  Her father is a doctor.  I 
write well but some of my kids' contribution to the writing field is their 
signiture.  You can't broad brush anything except absolutes.  If a person is 
totally blind they absolutely cannot see.  If a person is totally deaf they 
absolutely cannot hear.  Outside of that, nothing is written in stone. 
Judith
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "helene ryles" <dreamavdb at googlemail.com>
To: "Writer's Division Mailing List" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Thursday, November 19, 2009 12:52 PM
Subject: Re: [stylist] reading lips

I've just done my own google search. This is what I've found. On the
percentage we are both wrong. Most deaf DO combine speech with
residual hearing. That's why HOH do much better at it then profoundly
deaf people.
Anyway this is what I found on the subject:

People with normal vision, hearing and social skills unconsciously use
information from the lips and face to aid aural comprehension in
everyday conversation, and most fluent speakers of a language are able
to speechread to some extent. (See McGurk effect.) Each speech sound
(phoneme) has a particular facial and mouth position (viseme),
although many phonemes share the same viseme and thus are impossible
to distinguish from visual information alone. Sounds whose place of
articulation is inside the mouth or throat are not detectable, such as
glottal consonants. Voiced and unvoiced pairs look identical, such as
[p] and [b], [k] and [g], [t] and [d], [f] and [v], and [s] and [z]
(American English); likewise for nasalisation. It has been estimated
that only 30% to 40% of sounds in the English language are
distinguishable from sight alone; the phrase "where there's life,
there's hope" looks identical to "where's the lavender soap" in most
English dialects. Author Henry Kisor titled his book What's That Pig
Outdoors?: A Memoir of Deafness in reference to mishearing the
question, "What's that big loud noise?" He used this example in the
book to discuss the shortcomings of speechreading.

Thus a speechreader must use cues from the environment and a knowledge
of what is likely to be said. It is much easier to speechread
customary phrases such as greetings than utterances that appear in
isolation and without supporting information, such as the name of a
person never met before. Speechreaders who have grown up deaf may
never have heard the spoken language and are unlikely to be fluent
users of it, which makes speechreading much more difficult. They must
also learn the individual visemes by conscious training in an
educational setting. In addition, speechreading takes a lot of focus,
and can be extremely tiring. For these and other reasons, many deaf
people prefer to use other means of communication with non-signers,
such as mime and gesture, writing, and sign language interpreters.
When conversing with a speechreader, exaggerated mouthing of words is
not considered to be helpful and may in fact obscure useful clues.
However, it is possible to learn to emphasize useful clues — this is
known as lip speaking.

Other difficult scenarios in which to speechread include:

lack of a clear view of the speaker's lips. This includes obstructions
such as moustaches or hands in front of the mouth; the speaker's head
turned aside or away; bright light source such as a window behind the
speaker.
group discussions, especially when multiple people are talking in
quick succession.
Speechreading may be combined with Cued Speech; one of the arguments
in favor of the use of cued speech is that it helps develop lip
reading skills that may be useful even when cues are absent, i.e.,
when communicating with non-deaf, non-hard of hearing people.

Quote from the Listening Eye, Dorothy Clegg, 1953, "When you are deaf
you live inside a well-corked glass bottle. You see the entrancing
outside world, but it does not reach you. After learning to lip read,
you are still inside the bottle, but the cork has come out and the
outside world slowly but surely comes in to you." This view is
relatively controversial within the deaf world - see manualism and
oralism for an incomplete history of this debate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lip_reading

Helene

On 19/11/2009, helene ryles <dreamavdb at googlemail.com> wrote:
> Lori,
> No 20 per cent is the actual figure. 50 percent or more is only if it
> is combined with something else. Why else would people divise other
> systems. Tactilating, cued speech, visual phonics. It's to fill the
> gaps in.
>
> As a Hard of hearing person I had residual hearing as well but if the
> teacher didn't write things on the blackboard I really struggled.
>
> If you don't believe me do a google search and I'm sure you will find
> that the actual amount that is seen on lips is only 20 percent.
>
> Helene
>
> On 19/11/2009, LoriStay at aol.com <LoriStay at aol.com> wrote:
>> Helene, each person who lip reads understands a different percentage of
>> what is being said.   The 20% figure is not true of all.   David says his
>> deaf
>> friends understand 40 to 50% of what they lip read, and get the rest by
>> context.   And yes, sometimes they get it wrong.   But to say 20% is
>> generalizing, and it is not a good idea.
>> Lori
>>
>> In a message dated 11/18/09 3:35:28 PM, dreamavdb at googlemail.com writes:
>>
>>
>>>
>>> A profoundly deaf person couldn't manage just with lipreading and have
>>> a happy fullfilling life. For a completely deaf person it really isn't
>>> possible. You are asking me to believe that your friend daughter leads
>>> a good life from a method that only allows her 20 percent of what is
>>> being said. Next you will be asking me to believe that a person who
>>> cannot see at all is happily managing with the printed word.
>>>
>>>
>>
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>

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