by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.
A lady asked:
What I would like to know is how would I find a local class that teaches speechreading. I am on a fixed income and cannot afford the CD.
The best way to learn to speechread is to find a class that teaches speechreading. Unfortunately, these are few and far between in my experience.
I suggest that you ask around at the HLAA (SHHH) chapter nearest you. If there are any speechreading classes going on, they should know about it. Go to Find a Local HLAA Chapter in Your Area and click on the state you live in. It lists all the chapters in that state. Contact the chapter of your choice for more information.
Apart from a live class, I think the next best solution is to get the CD called “Seeing and Hearing Speech“. This is an excellent tool to learn speechreading right in the privacy of your own home. All you need is the CD and your computer. You can also learn more about speechreading in my article at Speechreading.
If you cannot afford the above excellent CD, I suggest that you join the Captioned Media Program at http://www.cfv.org. The only requirements are that you live in the USA, and that you are either deaf or hard of hearing.
If you have a VCR, you could borrow their 6 tape set of speechreading videos called “Read My Lips” (#9366 in their catalogue). A nice thing is that they pay the postage both ways so won’t cost you a cent!
I suggest that you just borrow one or two of these tapes to start with to see what you think. There is a lot of stuff on them–and you want to practice with them quite a bit before you advance to the next tapes.
You can register and then watch these tapes on-line too if you like. I have tried it in the past, but wasn’t successful in getting it to work then. You may have better luck than me.
You’ll find these tapes are helpful, but to me they are quite boring in contrast to the versatile CD mentioned above, but at least the price is right!