How They Read Lips

BY AWAKE! WRITER IN BRITAIN

TWO suspected terrorists talking together in a public park were filmed on video. Nobody could hear what they said​—yet, the police arrested them, and they were subsequently sentenced to many years in prison. Their recorded conversation was read by a lipreader accredited as an expert witness in Britain and described as a “potent secret weapon” of the British police.

To find out more about the art of lipreading, I went to see Mike and Christina. Christina has been deaf since the age of three. Later she attended a school for the deaf, where she was taught to lip-read. Mike is a self-taught lip-reader, an ability he developed following his marriage to Christina.

How difficult is it to lip-read? “You must concentrate on the shape and movement of the lips, the tongue, and the lower jaw,” says Mike. Christina adds: “You must look intently at the person speaking to you, and as your ability to read lips grows, you note facial expressions and body language too.”

One of the biggest mistakes, I have learned, is for the person speaking to shout or exaggerate lip movements. Such distortions can be confusing and self-defeating. Once lipreading has been mastered, it is even possible for the reader to pinpoint regional accents. But, of course, all of this is not easy! Hearing Concern, an organization that specializes in teaching lipreading, says quite frankly: “Lipreading requires practice, practice and more practice.”

There are times, Christina admits, when she is embarrassed to find herself quite unconsciously “listening in” to a conversation on a bus or train. All she can do is look away immediately. But her ability can be a protection. Christina no longer watches soccer on television because she has been offended so often by what she could see some of the players saying.

Few will ever attain the skills of the “secret weapon” of the British police. But even simple lipreading can be a valuable art to develop after an acute loss of hearing.

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Christina

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Mike