Reading Lips

I have written before about advocating for yourself, what to do if a hearing aid battery dies, and meeting new people.  I also try to mention in every single post about the realities of wearing hearing aids and how you 1) You need to wear your hearing aids, 2) Your physical location will help you hear better, 3) Water is not your friend and 4) It is not enough to just wear your hearing aids.  Well, the skill I want to talk about today is an extremely powerful tool to help you hear and covers items 1, 2 and 4 I listed above.

That tool is Reading Lips.

I am not an expert on how to develop this skill because I don’t remember how I did.  I suggest that you search the internet, talk to your Audiologist and to a speech pathologist about things you can do to develop your lip-reading skills.  However, I do want to impress upon you that it is a skill that is invaluable, and I’d like to give you a couple of examples of why it’s important.

When I meet new people, besides acknowledging that I wear hearing aids and answering their questions, I usually tell them that I read lips and if I am not looking at them, they should assume that I can’t hear them. Also, maybe they could wait until I look at them before saying whatever they need to say.  This is especially true in restaurants or places where there is a lot of background noise.  Hearing Aid technology has come a long way with regard to reducing background noise, but they aren’t perfect and the background noise can interfere with regular conversation.  The cool thing is, in loud situations with a lot of background noise (restaurants, concerts, bars, sports events, etc.), I’ve found that being able to read lips means that I can ‘hear’ my conversation partners better than they can me!

When I was younger, my family and I agreed that if they wanted to talk to me and I was in another room in the house, that they or I would move to the same room so that I could see them when they wanted to talk to me.  This follows ‘assume when I am not looking at you, I can’t hear you’.

Reading Lips comes in handy in situations where you find yourself unable to wear your hearing aids.  For example, at the swimming pool, in hot tubs, sauna’s, the shower, or most occasions involving water.  I plan to write about water in future posts, but for now, know that water and hearing aids don’t mix (unless they’re waterproof).  I’ve been able to participate in many water-based activities in part because I can read lips and because I have wonderful friends and family who understand that I can’t hear them unless I’m looking at them.

Some things make reading lips more difficult: Heavy facial hair (especially mustaches), people who talk without moving their lips very much and people talking with their mouths full of food.  In those situations, I usually find myself asking people to repeat themselves more often or to slow down when they talk.

Conclusion

It takes time to develop the skills necessary to read lips.  However, I strongly believe that reading lips is a huge part of my hearing.  While my hearing aids are wonderful at helping me hear, reading lips provides another way for me to hear the subtle nuances of speech which I cannot hear even with my hearing aids.  I suggest that you talk with your audiologist and a speech pathologist and make a deliberate effort to develop those skills.  They will immensely improve your interpersonal quality of life and help you when you’re in conversation with your colleagues, friends, and family.  Don’t forget to advocate for yourself and make sure that your conversation partner knows that you can’t hear them unless you’re looking at them.

Until next time, please keep in mind that if you need hearing aids and don't wear them, you should!  If you know someone who needs them and doesn't, do them a favor and talk to them.  If you need to, send them to this site.  It's ok to wear hearing aids, there are lots of us who do!