BARRIE'S STORY - An acoustic Neuroma patient

18. LIP-READING

As my recovery progressed it was clear that the deafness in my right ear and loss of balance on this side were perhaps the only really permanent problems. The effect is that in many situations I have major problems hearing someone talking to me. This is particularly problematic where there is background noise and my good left ear is not facing the speaker. Examples are where I am a passenger in a car with the driver to my right or in a noisy pub or restaurant.

My wife suggested a lip-reading class. In September 2002 I started as a beginner in a lip- reading class run by my Local Authority at an adult learning school. Because of my Single Sided Deafness (SSD) the class is free.

I soon realised that everyone actually does some subconscious lip-reading when looking at a speaker. There is a story of a slightly deaf person who claimed they could hear better when wearing their glasses! When I started the course I was still suffering from some 'woolliness' in my head so I found the course quite difficult but quite quickly I seemed to gain more clarity.

I still have problems trying to keep up with lip reading because I have only one eye to watch the teacher and I have to wear my glasses to accurately see the teacher's mouth. I then have to take off my glasses to try and write down what I think she has said. With my poor, very slow handwriting this is a major problem. One important benefit of the course is that I have registered with my Local Authority as disabled. This means I have a yellow card that indicates I am disabled and qualifies me for various discounts. One benefit is that I do not pay Value Added Tax on purchases that are directly associated with my disability.

Sometimes I find that my disability is far less than some of the members of my class because my good ear does seem to be much sharper and I can hear more now with it than before my operation. In class, when someone tries to shape words with their lips for the rest of the class to read it is very difficult to do it without at least whispering the words. My good ear can often pick up fragments of these words to help interpret the meaning of the speaker.

As I get older I expect that the hearing in my good ear will slowly deteriorate and lip-reading will become an ever more important skill for me. The course has covered the pronunciation of most of the constants and since September 2003 we have begun learning the vowels. It is clear that gaining expertise in lip-reading requires continual practice and with names this can be quite difficult. To aid this problem we have learnt the RNID Standard Manual Alphabet, which provides signs for each letter. In class it can be useful to sign the first letter of difficult words or proper names.