Speech Reading Class

Members of the CHSL Speechreading class, directed by Betty Sweetman.

Communication Tips

Ways to Improve Communication

Here are some things you or your loved ones can do to improve your communication. You can ask your family, friends and co-workers to pay attention to the following communication strategies for talking with someone who is hard of hearing. You can also consider taking a speech-reading class to improve your own comprehension skills.

Communicating With People Who Are Hard of Hearing

• Get a person's attention. Tap him on the shoulder, otherwise he may not hear you or be able to locate where the sound of your voice is coming from.
• Try not to communicate in a noisy place. The sounds of a TV, music or traffic create background noise and can turn your words into gibberish.
• Talk face-to-face. Like most people, hard of hearing people, consciously or not, use at least some lip reading so keep your mouth clearly visible.
• Keep your hands away from your mouth.
• Talk in a normal voice. Don't shout. In face-to-face communications at normal talking distance, most of the problem is in the clarity of what is heard, not the loudness of the sound.
• If you tend to talk fast, slow down a little. When a hard of hearing person listens to you, he is doing double duty—not only is he mentally processing the meaning of your words but he is also trying to make words out of the often blurry sounds he is hearing.
• Talk clearly. Mumbling or slurring makes your words into blurry noise for a hard of hearing person.
• Don't talk from another room (or even across the room) to a hard of hearing person.
• Don't shout. Usually shouting makes your voice higher-pitched and that is harder for someone with hearing loss to hear.

Speech Reading Classes

The Center for Hearing, Speech and Language offers periodic classes in Speech Reading. This is a lip-reading instructional course that offers hearing-impaired persons an enhancement technique that can ultimately improve their ability to communicate—whether they use hearing aids or not. Even those whodo not suffer from a hearing disorder can benefit from speech-reading classes!

Speech-reading is an art form in itself—the ability to use visual and situational information to enhance a person's ability to communicate. Classroom participants are taught analytic skills, such as recognizing how specific sounds look on the lips, and synthetic skills, such as using context and body language to help understand what a speaker is saying. Considering the fact that in the United States alone, more than 28 million people have some level of hearing loss thus making speech-reading classes very relevant.

The Center for Hearing, Speech and Language has a rich history in speech-reading. In fact, CHSL first offered services as a volunteer-run lip-reading club in 1918 and evolved into the Denver League for the Hard of Hearing.

Classes meet in the conference room of the CHSL offices, located at 4280 Hale Parkway (2 blocks East of 12th and Colorado Boulevard) and are one hour per week for six weeks. Classroom fees, including all instruction and materials, are $95 per person. If you are interested in attending a future class, please call Betty Sweetman, CHSL Director of Audiology, at 303-322-1871, Ext. 108.