The Course Content, “caters “to people unfortunate enough to suffer from a hearing loss, – whatever that degree may be.
Losing your hearing carries with it much psychology; the isolation, exclusion and frustration it brings, along with a feeling of low esteem, is difficult unless one has experienced it.
From the feedback that I have had from various learners, from all walks of life and of varied professional and educational skills, the course helps considerably in alleviating these feelings
A common bond is formed and shared which encourages the learning process besides providing the valued opportunity to increase “awareness” and improve communication development, gives/boosts lowering self-confidence in a relaxed but stimulating and informative lipreading situation, backed by carefully chosen lesson material of general interest
Only 35 % of speech is lipreadable in “perfect conditions” this of course is rare, one has to fully concentrate, therefore eye breaks are very necessary. These are given by relevant visual aids, (pictures etc.) pairs/ group work, a quiz.
When the prose is written on the board for the learners to lipread there will be missing words, if these words are particularly difficult to lipread the tutor will write a clue below the gap to assist the learner in finding the hidden word. Fingerspelling is also one of the learning outcomes.
The course covers all aspects relating to losing your hearing loss, problem-solving; eating/meeting in noisy environments; how a hearing aid works; how the ear works; understanding and being confident to ask for repetition of speech; personal audiograms; tinnitus; coping strategies in a store, outdoors with traffic noise, visible and invisible speech movement, the limits of lipreading due to homophonous word, ( words that look alike on the lips but have a different meaning, causing confusion) the list is endless
All story/ prose content is delivered without voice as many times as necessary to the group who will be sat in a semi-circular shape and will be able to clearly see the tutors face and the whiteboard. Once the tutor is confident that learning has taken place, they will complete the sentence on the whiteboard and confirm the whole sentence with voice
All individual lesson content provides the opportunity for group members to lipread each other and not just the tutor, by way of prepared participation exercises, from prepared sentences
Hearing loss, with all its complexities, is a bigger handicap, especially socially, than is generally realised or appreciated
Therefore, a lipreading course is an all-important way and means, through practice, gradual and useful information, help and sharing, of guiding group members to find their rightful” place” and be a part of everyday life by increasing their lipreading skills which in turn will make them more assertive.
It was Helen Keller who was born without sight and then became deaf after meningitis at two years of age, who said that if she had a choice of being blind or deaf, she would choose to be blind
She said
“Blindness cuts one off from things…….deafness cuts us off from people”
