Speech Reading

Hey Everyone,

Speech reading is an important tool that people diagnosed with a hearing loss can use to facilitate communication with others in their environment. It’s important to think about all of the factors that could influence a person’s ability to speech read. We may not be able to control all factors related to speech reading but we can control our environment.  Below are some environmental factors to think about when communicating with someone using speech reading to communicate:

noise/distractions (can draw one’s visual attention away from the mouth)

sufficient illumination: you can’t lipread in the dark

glare

where light falls (talker’s face vs. lipreader’s eyes)

distance:

6 – 9 feet is optimal

angle:

0 – 45 degrees is optimal

These are all things we can do to help facilitate easier communication with people diagnosed with a hearing loss.

 

Hope everyone is staying warm!

–Steph