National Lipreading Awareness Week
Next week marks the start of national Lipreading Awareness Week 2015 (14-19th September) and the UK hearing loss charity Hearing Link, is challenging YOU to test your lipreading skills!
Lipreading Awareness Week, led by the Association of Teachers of Lipreading to Adults (ATLA), is an opportunity to raise awareness of the importance of lipreading for people with hearing loss.
Currently 1 in 6 adults in the UK live with some degree of hearing loss and the majority of them rely on lipreading to aid communication at home, work and socially every day.
Attending a lipreading class can empower them to lead their life fully by helping to improve their social skills and building confidence and self-esteem. However, lipreading is a challenging for anyone, with or without a hearing loss, because it is easy to misinterpret lip and mouth shapes.
To help more people understand the challenges involved; Hearing Link is challenging the general public to take its online lipreading quiz to find out how good their lipreading skills are. The test features a speaker saying ten short words and phrases – but without sound. The viewer must guess what was said by selecting an answer from multiple choice options. At the end of the quiz, you’ll receive your results. Quiz-takers will then be prompted to challenge their friends and family to test their lipreading skills via social media using the hashtag #lipchallenge2015.
Dr Lorraine Gailey, Chief Executive of Hearing Link said: “Lipreading is an important and essential skill for people living with hearing loss; however it isn’t easy to get right for an experience lipreading or a person without a hearing loss. Our quiz highlights how challenging it can be for to use this skill each day. We hope by our supporters testing their own lipreading skills and challenging their friends and family to do the same, it will help to raise awareness of lipreading amongst the wider public.”
Hearing Link will also be sharing people’s experiences of lipreading and useful information via its website and social media channels throughout the week. Take part and find out more at https://www.hearinglink.org/national-lipreading-awareness-week.
If you have a question about hearing loss or lipreading, contact Hearing Link’s helpdesk by emailing helpdesk@hearinglink.org; Tel: 0300 111 1113 or SMS: 07526 123255.
For further information please contact: Lorna Armstrong, Marketing & Communications Manager, Email:lorna.armstrong@hearinglink.org Tel/SMS: 07534 563485.
Find out more and details of lipreading taster sessions at: http://atlalipreading.org.uk/
About Hearing Link
Hearing Link is a UK charity for people who have developed any level of hearing loss and their family and friends. It provides information and support and puts them in contact with others who have similar experiences. It aims to give people the knowledge, skills, confidence and contacts so they can more easily manage the practical and emotional challenges that hearing loss brings. It works across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.