Pam: When I went for my hearing test I was told pretty bluntly "you have inner ear deafness in both ears. If you would like to go and contact the nurse outside to see about your hearing aids…" And that, I'm afraid, is what happens to most people. You then shunt off to the person and they sort out your hearing aid. It's not explained what sort of hearing you've got. How it affects you.
You get the impression that the hearing aid is going to be the be all and end all but it's not because it amplifies sound. Because you lose your hearing you lose certain pitches in your hearing and the pitches affect vowels and consonants. And then you can talk to somebody but you will struggle to understand what they are saying. You can hear them but you can't work out the words and that's where lipreading comes into it.
Agnes Hoctor: In Essex we have been working with our
members and also with the Council with the Adult Learning Department there.
They have really listened to what our members have had to say.
We have worked with them over the course of the last year and it's involved
a lot of letter writing and we held a protest outside the Town Hall. There's
been meetings and earlier this year we took some of the lipreaders in to
meet with Lynsi at the Town Hall to talk directly to her about why lipreading
classes really matter.
Lynsi Hayward-Smith: The thing that really moved me about the learners was that this opportunity for them was threefold.
It was an opportunity to network, to meet with other people in the same circumstance so that they didn't feel alone, to share their experiences. It was an opportunity to get information and advice that they weren't getting anywhere else and it also gave them an opportunity to learn a skill and they told me about how that skill was important to them.
And the skill is important to them in all sorts of circumstances. Important to them in their home with their families. Important to them – some of them – in their work and in their employment and important in their leisure and their socialising. It's a skill that helps them feel less isolated. There are times when lipreading is the only skill they have to join in.
Richard: Deafness is a disability – it IS a disability, what everyone says. If you can't see properly, people know that that is a disability and the same applies with deafness. If I took my hearing aid out now then I've had it! But with the aid of lipreading and a hearing aid I'm able to correspond just like any other person.
Agnes Hoctor: We've also been working with MPs. We've had this issue raised in Parliament and we also got the local MEP, Richard Howitt involved and he has been really supportive. He's really understood how important these classes are to local people and why it's important that they are provided free to those who need them.
Lynsi Hayward-Smith: We're looking to the future as well and to try to certificate the course so that people have an award. A certificate that says they've achieved this lipreading skill and then help them join a club that will be a network that will be forever, that will be an ongoing support for them. Because the other thing that's apparent, talking to the learners, is that this is a skill that they need to practise. They need to keep it up to enable them to keep going and to keep using it.