What is a lip-speaker?

Many people with hearing loss spontaneously use lip reading/speech reading as their hearing begins to decline. Lip readers are practitioners who facilitate communication in a formal way, for example during meetings and the like, by repeating what has been said but without vocal sound. The person follows the lip speaker's mouth, facial expressions, gestures and body language. This is done within the grammar of that particular spoken language, Afrikaans, English, Xhosa, or other.

However, we must first look at what lip reading and speech reading really involves in order to better understand the process.

Lip-reading involves the lips only, but speech-reading involves the entire body: information from all visible parts of the mouth, gestures, body language, facial expressions, posture, and so on.  Lip-reading/speech-reading is a skill that can be learned, and many of us will automatically begin lip- or speech-reading at some point in our lives.

Lip-/speech-reading can be hindered by factors such as speakers who mumble, no clear view of the speaker’s face, poor lighting, etc.  Speakers who turn away from the person while talking, or more than one person is trying to speak at the same time, make lip-/speech-reading impossible.

What happens when a person acquires hearing loss or deafness later in life?

These persons may access hearing devices such as hearing aids or hearing cochlear implants.  However, despite the best technology that listening and assistive listening devices offer, speech-/lip-reading plays an important role in allowing people to use what they can hear, and what they can see on the lips to gain more accurate understanding.

Such devices and techniques have been a lifeline for me over the past 36 years.

- Fanie du Toit