Chase

Last night at the public library, I was on volunteer duty, returning books to the shelves. A young lady approached already speaking in a rapid and breathless manner:

". . . uh . . . you know . . . like . . . lost my book . . . your book . . . the library’s book . . . that was . . . you know . . . I mean . . . like due last . . . um . . . week . . . you know. . . ."

Held up my hand to stop her. “I’m deaf,” I said, also making the sign for deaf. “But I can speech read if you can go a bit slower.” By that time I had waded through her lip movements, shrugs, and facial contortions to understand that she was trying to say: “I can’t find my overdue library book. What do I do now?”

She then spoke v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y. “Is . . . uh . . . some . . . uh . . . one . . . some . . . body . . . you know . . . a person . . . that . . . ur . . . can . . . like, you know . . . talk . . . and . . . um . . . here?”

The last phrase could have been “can talk and hear” or “can talk here.” Who knows? But it was delivered with a deep frown, eyes darting around like she was looking for an escape route.

Anyway, I said, “Sure. I’ll take you to the checkout desk to speak to the librarian.”

She never smiled, never looked grateful, never offered thanks, but when we got to the desk, she said to the librarian (not to me, the retard), “He . . . um . . . like . . . you know . . . talks . . . um . . . I mean . . . real . . . um . . . good.”

Lots better than you, I thought, but didn’t say out loud. If you speech read, what are some of the barriers you encounter?

Deafness

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Bottesini

I used to have a dog groomer with bad teeth. She got self conscious and covered mouth with her hand when I watched closely. She had to be reminded a lot. Now I have younger groomer with good skills who looks right at me and repeats if even an eyebrow goes up. ( I like my dog groomer now)

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deafskeptic

When I was younger, I had problems with some older blacks who wouldn't look at me when they spoke to me. Someone explained to me that since we live in the South, those blacks were prolly taught not to look directly at whites because whites are "better" than them. I"m glad to be rid of this Southern tradition.

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Oceanbreeze

Gosh, Chase. I'm sorry. She sounds like a real moron. Teenagers are a pain anyway. I was getting annoyed just reading the dialog. How many times can someone insert the word "like" into a sentence?!

"Like, you know, it's so..like.... ANNOYING!"

Seriously, you're a better person than I would have been. I would have wanted to bitch-slap her!

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Bottesini

I bite! It is scarier.

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Chase

Actually, I led us off topic. My word-for-word example was to show how repeated inserts of mindless patter make speech-reading harder. It takes several seconds (sometimes whole minutes) for me to piece together what may have been said.

Alas, I'm not a better person. Maybe not even as good, but the reason I don't draw and fire is I guess I really am slow, heh heh. At least at speech reading.

Update: I got this via today's e-mail. The person who last night was impersonating a vapid teen was actually 22! By the time she told her story to the librarian, the book had become stolen in a house burglary. The librarian asked the woman for the police report number, and that started yet another round of “ums,” “likes,” “ya knows,” and “I means.”

I agree with Bottesini about the hand covering the mouth being a terrible habit. Even if it’s a temporary thing, the person goes right on talking. Everyone wonders why we deafies miss so much.

jenni-m

Wow, at least you got that much.

To me, nonsense repeated is still nonsense haha.
Though I have gotten to where I can identify if someone is talking, I can't understand them, but at times I can know speech when I hear it. It is still gibberish to me, though.

It's been noticed with me that I can't seem to distinguish syllables or sounds or tones very well. I hear 'something' but it sounds all 'samey' to me. We tried all kinds of different programming too, but for now I just don't care. Maybe I'll go back to it one day when even better processors come out...

Raykat

Having been dependant upon speech reading all my life, with just a little background sound from H/a I could go on and ...um...on...um...on with this subject....hehehe

However I will restrict myself to one example.

Many many years ago my dear departed mother desired to have a little girl who could tinkle the ivories, god forbid that said little girls deafness might hinder this noble aspiration.

In due course little girl learns to read a reasonable amount of music but never heard a single mistake she made.

All this hard graft was hindered no end by the music teachers hangups about hers looks, meaning that when little girl turned to see what teacher was saying the response was always...."I know I've got a funny face so dont keep staring at me"......um yea, um well, end of speech reading right there.

Looking back I realise my mum probably never explained to teacher about speech reading and this being the good ol '50's teacher had probably never met another deaf child.

Oh the trials we bear!!!!!

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jenni-m

Oh, never mind me... I hadn't realized this is about 'lip reading' or speech 'reading', something I have never really done, because well... it is not comfortable for most people to have me up 'in their face' trying to see what they are doing. Haha.

Chase

You got that right! Jenni, I can't hear at all, so when I get nonsense at the lips, I have to guess everything from context, expressions, body language, etc. Maybe you're doing the same . . . reading what they're "feeling," not what they're "saying."

Hi, Raykat. Nice to "hear" from you again. Your example is really deep. It's true that one BIG barrier to speech reading is with some of the people we have to read, it's all about them . . . never any concern about the exhausting effort we're going through.

Off-topic about the piano playing: I can't begin to imagine the skill and cleverness of a little girl who learns the mechanics of the keyboard without the ability to hear the nuances. That's one smart little cookie.

Pepsi

Chase,don't you just hate that? I mean I would like to have a dollar for everytime I have to put up with stuff like that(which is almost everyday).

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Secretblend

I also learned how to play the piano and the violin when I was younger. Looking back, I wish I would have stuck with piano. However, violin is hard for a deaf person to play cause would really need to hear what you are playing and making sure finger and bow is in right place.

That is not really needed for piano since if kept in tune at all times by a tuner, it should be fine as long as finger is in right place.

As for lipreading. I find it is very hard to do if I don't wear my hearing aids. I also find that once you ask them to repeat it, they get frustrated almost immediately and that makes it even harder. It does take practice and it also depends on person. Some I can read very well while others is very difficult. I can't tell why but that is the way it is.

One thing I find when I don't wear hearing aids is that I tend to be quiet and be more observant and also is left alone more often. I am finding myself liking that cause I don't say anything that gets me in trouble.

Matilda

Years ago, most people used to speak very well and enunciate words clearly enough because speech and deportment was the norm. Nowadays, they can't be bothered speaking clearly hence our difficulties in lip-reading.

deafbajagal

obstacles/barriers to speech reading
* mustaches and beards
* poor lighting in the environment
*when a person constantly turns his head or back away from the speech reader
* people who smile while they talk (that is very annoying to me)
*microphones

shel90

Speechreading makes me feel so worn out at the end of the day.

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~Shel~

"A child educated only at school is an uneducated child." -George Santayana

August

haha, what are you, some kind of nihilist?

WHY MUST YOU HATE HAPPINESS!?

shel90

Cuz people look like the "Joker" when they smile while talking to a deaf person as if they are dumb. They are the ones who look dumb anyway. LOL!

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~Shel~

"A child educated only at school is an uneducated child." -George Santayana

August

how can you know if they're smiling because they think you're dumb?

maybe they're just happy?

or a ladybug is crawling up their ass and they can't help but giggle?

Banjo

How true! Whenever I bring up the argument of having movies open-captioned at the theatres. The hearing people always have to whine about having to "read" the movies.

Well... what about us? We can't "hear" the movie. It's ridiculous. Rear Window Captioning is a pain in the neck. Literally and figuratively. It's much easier on us to read the captions on the screen instead of staring at a fiberglass reflector or whatever it is. Not only that, some people are unable to watch the movie and read the captions at the same time because of their eyeglasses. The captions are close to you while the screen is likely 15 to 50 ft away... for some people, they can't keep both in focus. I can, but some people can't.

Anyway, people can be so dense.

shel90

No, there is a certain look..I think others who grew up orally know what I am talking about. With that big "Joker"-like grin and the constant nodding of the head but the conversation is one-way with me doing the talking rather than two-way with a healthy dialogue. It is hard to explain via Internet but I know when someone really doesnt want to deal with me simply because of my different needs of communication as a deaf person.

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~Shel~

"A child educated only at school is an uneducated child." -George Santayana

Bottesini

I do know what you mean.

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deafbajagal

Professional answer: People who smile while they talk have their lips stretched, which affects the mouth formation - and makes it very difficult to speech read. It is much worse when I'm blinded by bleached teeth.

Real reason: I'm miserable, and I want everybody else to be miserable, too! Why should they be happy?!

VamPyroX

I know what you mean.

I've gone through the same thing several times before.

Suppose they normal speed limit is 40 MPH. If someone talks at 60 MPH and I ask them to slow down, they will slow down to 20 MPH. Jeez... I'm not THAT dumb!

It can be frustrating. Some people just don't have the patience for it.

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