What do deaf people do about reading lips?

It is a serious issue for lip readers and I have heard of a deaf person's carer being insulted because she lifted her face mask to talk to the deaf person on a train over here in Liverpool in England.

That said this immediately made me look for a bad lip reading video and since this site has been overtaken by mad politics I had to choose this, everyone likes to skit politicians anyway, even there own.

Since common masking has little effect on virus transmission, yet has numerous harmful effects, I'd dump the mask directive and double down on cleaning public surfaces that are often touched and hand washing, both of which do far, far more to curtail transmission of virus than 99.99999% of the masks out there.

On a "good" note, the directive has let me know I'm loosing my hearing... not that most public interactions are worth listening to.

a reply to: Baddogma

I worked in security for many years, a lady with warts on her face and whom seemed a little bit backward got too close to me and this was one of those people who spit's when they talk, she was not meaning ill but were her saliva landed on my nose I still got a wart so?..

Mask's do nothing, believe me sunshine I wish she had a mask on that day.

But to be fair no one likes being muzzled.

a reply to: AaarghZombies

My son has both a hearing disorder and dysgraphia. So he has trouble hearing and he has extreme trouble writing legibly. Your pen and paper does not work for him.

a reply to: LABTECH767

Meh, an old witch's magic spit is hardly a scientific study of virus transmission. I vote she got ya with a spell.

But if people are that worried, I won't fault them for wrapping up in environmental suits to stave off the inevitable for a few more years.

But the wisps of porous fabric most wrap their gobs in are poor filters for virus.

Yeah my deaf Aunt has as far as I know been spending a lot more time alone. Coincidentally, she's I'd say only a little less than terrified of Covid 19 and so that's a big part of why she's avoiding people. Also she's a big believer in the power of masks.

Never forget that many people instinctively like wearing masks, while many people instinctively hate washing their hands to the point that the Doctor who discovered that washing hands was extremely effective at preventing infections died in an insane asylum after being railroaded there by other angry doctors who hated having to wash their hands.

I wear a mask because other people are crazy and that's it and any other claim is basically a god damn lie. I wash my hands because it works pretty good.

originally posted by: Baddogma
a reply to: LABTECH767

Meh, an old witch's magic spit is hardly a scientific study of virus transmission. I vote she got ya with a spell.

But if people are that worried, I won't fault them for wrapping up in environmental suits to stave off the inevitable for a few more years.

But the wisps of porous fabric most wrap their gobs in are poor filters for virus.

Read that while eating a yogurt, one of those with the crunchy bit's and nearly choked laughing.

No more like a bad case of Herpes.

But yeah if I lived in some third world nation were a dead chicken's liver with three feathers stuck in it and a frog's eye was enough to scare me to death I would probably put it down to that.

Hey I am not an atheist or anything I just draw the line under that kind of crap.

First of all Pathogen's, you know how they work?.

Virus, what are they?.

Bacteria/Bacilli what are they?.

Right pathogen is any virus or bacteria that makes you ill, we are already full of pathogen's but our immune system is usually strong enough to kick the crap out of them and keep them in line.

Virus, well think of that magical material called DNA and RNA, that tiny molecular structure that holds all the information in your cell that you can think of as a kind of computer program but one made of molecules not digital code.

Now a Virus is basically a small piece of that but it is then wrapped up in something called a Protein Sheaf or Shell, this Shell usually has various kinds of small molecules called Enzymes on it's surface that allow it to pass through the wall's of your cell and then release the genetic material inside it, this material then (Screams a fanatical word and threatens to blow itself up - erm no it does not) HIJACK's your cell's nucleus or sometimes one of the cell's Cytoblasts were it then causes the cell to turn into a Factory producing CLONES of the virus until the cell bursts and dies and all those millions of copy's of the original virus then go out into your body seeking MORE of your cell's to invade and hijack, in some cases they also turn off and become part of your DNA but may still alter your cell's function making it do thing's it was not meant to, some virologists a few years ago reverse engineered one strain of Cancer and found that it was originally a Virus that did this and became incorporated into the genetic material of the human race.

A Bacteria on the other hand is more like a Cell, in fact it IS a cell a single celled organism, they can make you sick in various way's, by the toxin's they produce, by killing and eating your OWN cell's and just by being generally nasty little #'s.

Bacterial are usually easier for your body to fight off but not always and some bacilli can be deadly, every bit as deadly as virus can be.

Actually some Virus are actually our friend's, these are called Bacteriophage and they invade and kill Bacteria?.

So Yes a mask CAN protect you, CAN stop you spreading disease YOU MAY HAVE to others and can limit the natural aerosol spray of mucus when you speak, cough or even breath with your mouth open, let alone Sneeze.


Let's clarify a bit, you breath and you have saliva in your throat, nose and mouth, sometimes, all the time tiny droplets of moisture/saliva are exhaled when you breath out and form aerosol like mist you can easily see on cold day's, it's not all steam some is actual droplets, these droplets can carry a fair ways and in them some virus or even bacteria can hitch a ride especially if you are ill and have a bronchial infection of some sort.

A mask act's a tiny bit like the dust filter on your vacuum cleaner it screen's out a lot of these droplets both that YOU breath out and that other's have already breathed out that are floating in the air you are breathing in.

So if some of these droplets have bacteria and/or Virus in them which may make you ill and you are wearing a mask that stop's some of these droplets from being breathed in by you the mask is partially protecting you, the better the mask the better the affect.

Surgeons wear mask's in theatre as much to prevent them from infecting the open wound of there patients they are operating on as to protect themselves from any disease the patients may have.


So it is actually wrong based on the common sense reasoning and empirical facts to suggest that mask's do not work when in fact they do, they are not perfect only a full body suit with it's own air supply would be and even that could be torn but they help a lot.

However you make an excellent point, a mask once damp can then act to spray more droplets into the air under pressure? - the pressure of your exhaled breath forcing through the weave of the mask, these droplets too can also carry the virus, I guess it all depends on how moist your breath is and under what conditions you use the mask just like anything, sometimes you need a full face visor with air filters and a yellow body suit so you can scare the little children into thinking they have been invaded, that last joke is too close to the truth for comfort perhaps haha.

originally posted by: KandinskyChaos
The hard of hearing already feel isolated.

I'm sorry you (and others) are dealing with this.

Do you have a Smart Phone? I found an article about apps for people with Disabilities. It's pretty outdated from 2014. But I tried typing one:

talkitt

into Google Play (Android) and it didn't list the app, but came up with other apps for Speech Assistance.

There's a Center for Independent Living in my County. I wonder if there's anything like that near you.

originally posted by: putnam6
I am losing my hearing in my left ear (Meniere's disease) and it sucks I can usually hear enough and see their lip movement and make it out. But persons mumbling through a mask and not seeing lip movement makes it much worse. I can only imagine what persons with complete hearing loss are going through.

I looked that up and compared it to my own hearing issues (that admittedly, I need evaluated) I'm not sure if what I have going on is Meniere's, but it sure sounds like it, and also in the left ear like you, just sans the apparently typical nausea spells. Total hearing loss like a switch was flipped, followed by a full feeling in the ear like when you blow your nose too hard & "stop up" the ears, and sometimes spins, then a TV-like hissy-static noise as the hearing slowly comes back, yup, but nausea, no. Does any of that sound (no pun intended) anything like Meniere's, or maybe something else entirely?

I'm not sure how to quantify it on a relatable level for other people to understand just what kind of a miserable PITGDA trying hear people through masks and not having lips to guide you even a tiny bit WRT what the syllable sounds are leading to, other than this:

In public with masks on, if my husband is a stride or two ahead of me, not facing me, and is speaking, he might as well be mumbling unintelligible gibberish. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten frustrated enough to say "I have no idea what the hell you just said, because I can't hear you when you're facing away."

I KNOW my hearing is poor and getting poorer, and yes, yes, I know I need it checked out. Propensity for putting off stuff aside, the masking bull# has made me realize just how terrible my hearing is.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: AaarghZombies

My son has both a hearing disorder and dysgraphia. So he has trouble hearing and he has extreme trouble writing legibly. Your pen and paper does not work for him.

Sorry to hear about that. There's no 'one-size fits all' method with deaf/Deafness, there's huge variation in reading, writing, signing ability depending on the age someone became deaf/Deaf, language acquisition and preferred learning style.

As CryHavoc pointed out above have you tried experimenting with phone apps? There's a lot of excellent free ones avaiable (over here in the UK they're all avaiable for free under the Disability Discrimination Act, your country should have similar - they can be accessed through disability rights groups or charities about the conditions - such as this 9 useful apps for people with hearing loss

Tap SOS
This highly useful app won last year’s AbilityNet Tech4Good Digital Health Award. It offers a way for people who are deaf and those who have hearing loss to communicate with emergency services without needing to speak or listen. TapSOS is very visual and works by the user tapping the screen to select which options they need.


SIgnly
It might be assumed that written information is the best way to communicate with people who are deaf. It’s not always understood by the general population that learning to read means connecting what a word looks like to how it sounds and so reading can be more difficult for people who are born deaf, particularly when that person is still a child.

The Signly app was set up to offer people who are deaf, or who have hearing loss another option for understanding written or visual information. The app was first used at the Roald Dahl museum in the UK.

I used to be a support worker in UK Universities for deaf/Deaf and ASD students taking notes of lectures and translating the information to fit their needs and PA for a blind law lecturer - the assistive technology out there is pretty mindblowing but they're sadly not widely advertised (as most are free) so can be hard to find and impossible to find out what free support is available without talking to a disability rights group (such as Disability Equality in the UK).

We used to supply students with cinditions similar to Dysgrahia with this type of pen with a lot of succes as it takes any tension out of writing and doesn't requirw fine motor skills to write clearly and legibly disability pen others found putting blu-tac or plastecine on a pen helped

I personally have a lot of free equipment aupplied by LifeLine and Tunstall for my eplillepsy (house is rigged up with various sensors to ring emergency sevrvices if it detects a seizure, have a watch that detects sudden drops and rings emergency services if I'm non-responsive with GPS data of my location.

If they're worried about potentially drawing attention to themselves, having to explain private stuff to random staff or people rubber necking there's subtle badges or lanyards for people with hidden disabilities (available for free at customer services) used by all stores and staff are trained to not rush the person and go the extra mile to help.

It's a real problem for the deaf and hard of hearing. There is an App on google play store called " Live Transcribe" it can be a life savor. Its sort of like having live closed caption , very cool App . That's about all there is unless others know sign ALS-American sign language. A Security guard gave me and friend a hard time because of it told us to leave, because lifting your mask to talk was in violation of pandemic store policy. so we left with nothing form the store thus we were denied to shop , that is clearly a violation of the ADA.
I'm filing a report with the justice department that's whom handles the ADA complaints. So ATS' ers if you or a friend are having problems with stores contact the Department of Justice, they will open a case and contact the store officially . Business can be fined up to $25,000 in the USA. The DOJ is the only place to file a official complaint that will be acted upon.

originally posted by: SJE98
"Live Transcribe"

Thank you for posting this. Downloading now.

I read lips. It has been tough, in public, if questions ate asked or answered. I have a notepad ready. But, truth is, I haven't needed it much. I order groceries and supplies online, contactless, gas is paid at the pump, we dont eat out. Getting a tag was tough. Getting auto repairs, a nightmare.

originally posted by: CryHavoc
I never thought about this. Definitely a Social Issue. Edit to add: I don't feel isolated, I didnt change how I buy groceries or supplies because of covid, I already did this. I am generally a upbeat, happy person, I dont have to be around others in person to find great joy in life.

What are deaf people doing to read lips when everybody is wearing a mask?

Wow! That has to be terrible. Like losing another sense.

And how would you compensate for it? Computer tablet? Dry-erase board?