Archive for lipreading

The Expensive Interview

{ October 4, 2007 @ 3:57 am } · { deaf, deafness, driving while deaf, hard of hearing, hard of hearing drivers, hearing impaired, hearing loss, lipreading }
{ } · { Comments (4) }

Do you have close relatives that cannot remember to get your attention before speaking to you, or make sure you can see their lips, or speak clearly, with sufficient volume? Every time I get together with my mother (who lives three miles from me), I ALWAYS have to say one (or more) of the following phrases numerous times:

  • I can’t hear you!
  • What was that?
  • Did you know I have a hearing loss, Mom?
  • Are you talking to me?

Why can’t she remember to communicate properly with me? It doesn’t matter where we are; her place, my place, or in public. It drives me nuts! But one time it almost drove me into the poorhouse.

After I finished graduate school, I applied for a Librarian position several hours away in Jacksonville, Florida. I didn’t trust my old clunker to make the trip and asked my mother if I could borrow her nice car. She agreed to let me use it, and took a vacation day to go with me.

Driving to the interview was uneventful, and the interview lasted a few hours. Anxious to get home, I took a shortcut hoping to shave some time off this long trip. I did this by driving through a little town called Waldo (population 821). My mother chose this time to mumble something to me, and because the road was empty, I turned my head to lipread her.

For those of you who don’t know, Waldo is one of two places in the United States identified by AAA as a “speed trap.” The speed limit changes from 65 down to 45 in the space of half a mile! The good people of Waldo have only 8 police officers who manage to write an astounding 500+ tickets each month. The revenue from these tickets covers 25% of the town’s budget.

I don’t need to tell you that lipreading and driving through a speed trap is NOT A GOOD IDEA. The resulting $200 speeding ticket was tough to pay, as I was fresh out of school and jobless. Outrageous car insurance premiums hounded me for three years following this ticket.

And I didn’t get that job.

Was My Face Red!

{ September 21, 2007 @ 2:12 am } · { deaf, deafness, foreign accents, hard of hearing, hearing impaired, hearing loss, lipreading }
{ } · { Comments (8) }

A coworker recently returned from a week long vacation in New York. She stayed with relatives, and began to worry as she heard herself slip deeper into her native New York accent each passing day. She was a bit fearful of becoming the subject of one of my posts (Hi Michelle!) when she returned to work talking about her “muddah, faddah, and kwoffee.”

The funny thing is, I’m okay with heavy accents from The South, New York, the Cayman Islands, and the Bay Islands of Honduras, given sufficient volume and lip movements. My brain is able to “fill in” the missing sounds when I listen to people who hail from these places. But most foreign accents leave me baffled, especially when extra syllables are added and emphasized. Case in point:

Customer: Re - AH - roo.

Me: (Blank look on my face) Please repeat that?

Customer: Re - AH - roo.

Me: (Speaking quietly to coworker) Please help me! I don’t know if he’s speaking English or not!

Coworker to customer: May I help you?

Customer: Re - AH - roo.

Coworker: (Points to restroom)

Customer: (Begins walking to the restroom, but not before giving me a disgusted look)

Me: (Humiliated)

In moments like this, it’s hard to prove I wasn’t raised by a pack of rabid wolves.

Made for Each Other

{ September 14, 2007 @ 8:52 pm } · { Local Government Building, deaf, deafness, hard of hearing, hearing impaired, hearing loss, lipreading, lisps }
{ } · { Comments (4) }

I sit quietly at my desk in the Local Government Building. Customers are behaving themselves, and all is peaceful, when the door opens and The Dreaded Customer walks in the door. He’s never rude, never impolite, but I cringe inwardly the second he appears. Why? He’s the bane of my existence; every word he speaks looks EXACTLY the same. He simply repeats it endlessly. “Don’t look at his lips, don’t look at his lips,” I chant in my mind as he saunters up to my desk.

Me: Hi, may I help you?

Dreaded Customer: Bub-bub-bub-bub-bub-bub-bub-bub. Bub-bub-bub-bub?

Me: (Totally clueless look on my face) Excuse me?

Dreaded Customer: Bub-bub-bub-bub-bub-bub-bub-bub. Bub-bub-bub-bub?

Me: What kind of information do you need?

He gestures wildly, and speaks louder. Beads of perspiration form on my forehead. With intense effort, I manage to decode his nonsensical word formations and he leaves quickly. My sense of relief vanishes rapidly, however, as my gaze falls upon the next person to enter the Local Government Building. This is unbelievable! It can’t be! Not two in a row!

Now it’s time for an encounter with Miss Thith-thith-thith-thith-thith.

The Cool Teens

{ August 30, 2007 @ 5:09 pm } · { deafness, hard of hearing, hearing aids, hearing loss, lipreading }
{ } · { Comments (4) }

Since my last couple of posts were about my teenagers, I thought I’d write about my teen years with a hearing loss.

When I was 13, I took my hearing aids off, and decided I wasn’t going to wear them anymore. A typical teenager, I wanted to be just like my friends. My logic at that age consisted of, “None of my friends (wear hearing aids, have speech therapy, etc.), so why should I?” The only problem with my brilliant reasoning? None of my friends had a hearing loss.

I remember sitting in the back of the classroom with all the cool kids, which of course, made me cool, too. The cool kids didn’t lipread, so, say it with me: I didn’t lipread, either. My teachers could have been speaking Swahili for all I knew. Expend energy to understand the world around me? Nah, that would be Uncool. Everything had to be laidback and easy. The only time I had a clue about the topic was when the teacher wrote on the board.

My coolness was rewarded with really cool grades: Ds and Fs. The word, “DOOFUS” described me and my report card:

D - below average

O - outstanding (in music)

O - outstanding (in music)

F - fail

U - unsatisfactory (my conduct in class)

S - satisfactory (my conduct in music)

When I saw my cool son’s latest report card, I sat down, took a deep breath, and reminded myself that I was once a DOOFUS, too.

If you grew up wearing hearing aids, did you refuse to wear them as a teen?

The Crab Woman

{ August 21, 2007 @ 2:01 pm } · { Local Government Building, deafness, hard of hearing, hearing loss, lipreading }
{ } · { Comments (5) }

I interact with the public at my place of employment, and must announce my hearing loss to soft-spoken people on a daily basis. Most people readily accommodate me by speaking louder, but I’ve run into a handful of people that adamantly refuse to speak beyond an imperceptible whisper. These inaudible speakers are a strange breed, painfully shy, and barely able to move their lips.

Just the other day, I was blessed with an especially memorable encounter involving one of these afflicted beings. She blended in with the general population, but as we all know, looks can be deceiving. As she stood in front of my desk, she looked at me and moved her lips without making a sound. I needed a few more decibels for comprehension, and innocently spoke the magic words that ultimately unveiled her true identity:

“I’m hard of hearing. Please repeat that a little louder.”

Instantly, the metamorphosis began. Fascinated, I sat transfixed as her eyes bugged out, color drained from her face, and she white-knuckled the desk. After hesitating for a few seconds, she opened her mouth, and without any discernible difference in volume, made the same small lip movements as before.

Despite feeling a bit guilty for subjecting her to obvious torture, I stood up and leaned closer. With my most genteel voice, I pleaded, “Just a little louder, please?”

It was too much for her to bear. A look of horror filled her face, then her eyes darted from side to side. Her bosom heaved. Ever so silently, she moved her mouth again, in different movements this time, and scuttled away sideways, disappearing into the bowels of the Local Government Building, never to be seen again.

Have you ever encountered one of these?

I saw what you said last summer

{ August 20, 2007 @ 12:35 am } · { Local Government Building, deafness, hard of hearing, hearing impaired, hearing loss, lipreading, lisps }
{ } · { Comments (1) }

An international business traveler named Rick, commenting in response to my first post, stated “non-native English speakers often do not move their lips as …expect[ed] from a native speaker” and that he has “adjusted to many different accents and lip movements, but it required lots of practice.” That’s downright miraculous! Like most hard of hearing people, I struggle to understand anyone with heavily accented English. But living in Florida, I’m used to hearing, “Do you want cheeps with that sub?”

What makes me a little crazy is normal hearing native speakers of English blissfully unaware that they are mispronouncing their own name! There oughta be a law!  Mandatory time locked in a speech clinic ’til they can say their own name right might do ‘em some good!

Anyway, I digress. Hard of hearing people are very attentive to the way people speak. We must depend upon our eyes to fill in the sounds our ears fail to receive. But sometimes our eyes see too well. For example, while I was at work in the Local Government Building, a female customer needed assistance. I asked for her name.

She said, “Bef Smif.” *

Hmm….. A bit confused, I politely said, “Please spell your name for me.”

She very carefully spelled, B-E-T-H-S-M-I-T-H.  She then leaned over, slowly enunciating, “Bef Smif.”

I can’t hear the difference, but I sure can SEE the difference!

*Name changed to protect the guilty

Sorry, I read lips, not minds

{ August 3, 2007 @ 9:34 pm } · { Local Government Building, deafness, hard of hearing, lipreading }
{ } · { Comments (3) }

A young, Hispanic woman walked into the Local Government Building where I worked.  “Whoa!  I can read those lips from across the room!” I thought to myself.  It’s easier to lipread people with full lips.  No lip people might as well be speaking Chinese to me.  She made her way to the computers, then shot me a quizzical glance.

She walked toward me at the Help Desk.  I looked at her intently, confident I would be able to understand her speech. She parted her lips  half an inch and froze them in midair. 

“Uaa eeee ii uuaa.”   

 What?!  Maybe she’s speaking Spanish. “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand you.  Can you please repeat that?”

 ”Uuaa eeee ii uuaa.” 

The woman refused to move her large, stone lips to form words.  I’m pretty good at lipreading, but the lips have to move. 

“Let me get someone to help you.  I’ll be right back.”