Lipreading

autspoon:

Lipreading doesn’t really work if you
can’t hear at all, but if you can hear some, then you kind of end up
lipreading and manage to make out stuff easier with seeing lips.

Like
with a lot of sounds, they look the same. I can think of one example,
go to a mirror and say “pat a bat on a mat” in an ordinary
way.. Then do it really exaggerated. You’ll probably notice that first
off, it’s pretty hard to say…… But also, it’s pretty hard to see
the difference… and saying it exaggerated doesn’t change that.

To some deaf persons, a lot of that example would
look like you’re just repeating a word over and over… This is
basically how most of spoken language is like. A lot of shit said over
and over. It’s like the phrase “Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo”.. You don’t really understand what’s said even if there’s imposed meaning.

As a HoH person, I can go off some things though, there’s a lot of shit that blends together… And lipreading sort of distinguishes it for me. I heard only bits of sentences… Sometimes it’s more “I can hear there is sound, but jut not what exactly it is”… Like I can hear tone of voice or what kind of sound there is.

It’s kind of hard to really put words on it, but I’m going to try. When I hear and see someone speak, if someone were to say something, I would hear syllables, and I would hear some consonant… And lip movement often puts it together in my head.

But whilst this might be the case… This isn’t magic. It’s just that moreso I go off what I can hear, and lipreading becomes a distinguisher… But what must be understood is, most of lipreading relies on context and cues, and also actually hearing some things that distinguish words from each other.

Lipreading requires context and visual cues, and I would even argue some hearing, to really work. I use it basically only when it’s noisy in the environment I’m in, because that’s when I’m forced to.