Lip Reading Lessons

Blacktown diary

Details: Bruce Bentley, 0406 907 637.

¦Marayong Heights Public School car boot sale: Saturday, May 21, 9am-2pm, Shield Street, Marayong. Stalls/car spaces $20.

Details: Wally, 9674 3794.

¦Meditation Group: Friday, 6.30pm, Woodcroft Neighbourhood Centre, 65 Woodcroft Drive, Woodcroft.

Details: Tatiana, 9676 1474.

¦Better Hearing Australia: Hearing loss management class and lip reading skills classes, Community Services, Jeffrey House, 162 Marsden Street, Parramatta, Tuesdays, 1.30pm-3pm.

Details: 9744 0167.

¦Overeaters Anonymous: Thursdays, 6.30pm-7.30pm, Lawson; Thursdays, 7pm-8.30pm, St Marys; Wednesdays, Richmond, 1.30pm-3pm; Fridays 10.30am-noon, Riverstone.

Details: 0418 484 382 or www.oasydney.org.

¦Blacktown Arts and Crafts Group: Children's art classes for term two include drawing, water-colour, oil painting, acrylics, folk art, pastels and craft. Tuesdays, 4pm-6pm; Wednesdays, 4pm-6pm, 6pm-8pm; adult art classes, Tuesdays, 1pm-3pm; 7pm-9pm.

Details:9629 1144.

¦Cocoon Club: Social and swimming club for retired or semi-retired. Meetings first Thursday each month, Blacktown Aquatic Centre, 11.30am, followed by barbecue, cost $1. The club will also hold its Annual Biggest Morning Tea on behalf of the Cancer Council on Friday, May 20, 9am. Gold coin donation.

Contact Christine 0417 430 868 or Yvonne 0418 448 962.

Details: Christine, 0417 430 868 or Yvonne, 0418 448 962.

¦ Cuppa Club: Activities for seniors. Meets at St Mary's Uniting Church, 49 Brisbane Street, St Mary's, Mondays, 9.30am-noon. Morning tea included.

Details: Daphne, 4735 2746.

¦Playgroup: Doonside Honeybears is seeking members. Meet Fridays, 10am-noon, Doonside Neighbourhood Centre, 32 Birdwood Avenue, Doonside (behind IGA).

Details: Maria Webb, 0413 180 787, Kylie Poole, 0414 726 725 or email webbmaria@gmail.com.

¦Citizen Advocacy: Citizen Advocacy Western Sydney needs volunteers to be friends to those with intellectual disabilities living in Parramatta, Blacktown and Baulkham Hills. Training and ongoing support is provided.

Details: Kaye, 9893 8210.

¦U3A: Classes at the Westpoint Blacktown fourth floor community room include poetry, Japanese, Australian history and tai chi.

Details: Mike, 9671 2284.

¦Tai chi: Free weekly sessions, 9.30am, Saturdays, Woodcroft Lake.

Details: Guan, 0407 522 886.

Lip Reading and the use of visual clues

Lip reading or more accurately speech reading, since it includes facial gesture and body language, is a great help to the hearing impaired in making sense of speech. Lip reading is not sufficient on its own but together with the additional visual information available, even with impaired hearing, speech is much easier to understand.

Most of us lip read

Most of us lip-read to some extent in difficult listening situations and this can be a most useful adjunct to hearing aid use. Even with normal hearing a person will look at a speaker whenever possible to assist the communication process. In noisy surroundings, there may be some reliance on mouth movements and facial expressions to increase understanding. Many hearing impaired people acquire great skill without any conscious effort, while others may benefit from lip-reading classes.

Lip Reading Classes

Lip-reading classes are usually provided through the local education authority. With impaired hearing, there is likely to be some dependence on visual clues. Visual information may through observing visual cues (speech reading) or through a manual communication system (signing or finger spelling). The degree of dependence is related to the degree of hearing impairment. Someone who is profoundly deaf is reliant on visual information, whereas with a mild hearing loss hearing remains a primary communication channel. Such classes also bring together people with similar problems, which may also be very helpful in an individual’s adjustment to hearing loss.

Speech sounds

Many speech sounds cannot be differentiated by the visual pattern alone. Groups of phonemes that look the same when spoken are known as ‘visemes’ *(visemic-visually distinctive) E.g. `p’, `b’ and `m’ are part of the same viseme group, a speech reader could only conclude that one of the group had been spoken.Is is thought that only about 50% of a spoken message can be understood through lip reading alone. Lip- reading classes provides activities to aid development of speech reading. Even when significantly reduced hearing is coupled with speech reading, the listener’s ability to comprehend may be greatly increased.

Auditory Training

Auditory training is a series of exercises to help a hearing-impaired person to learn to listen and to build up the correct associations of sounds and their meanings. It is usually only appropriate for individuals with severe or profound hearing loss of long standing who may also use sign language and finger spelling, but these are only rarely used by adults with acquired hearing loss, mainly because they are of little help in communicating with the hearing community.

Lip reading lessons

Lessons in lip-reading for self-instruction

American annals of the deaf

Lip Reading

One-to-one lipreading lessons for kids 7-12