Speech Reading for Deaf Children

Speaking is one of the skills that affects communication orally or verbally. The essence of speaking is so that our speech can be understood, and that is the main purpose of speaking. Speaking to deaf students is more complicated because they use sign language for each syllable, word by word, and use one sign for one concrete word.

Every country has a different sign language. In Indonesia, deaf students use sign language to communicate with each other. The purpose of conversation or discussion with deaf children as early as possible is to improve and support their ability to communicate. In general, their difficulties in language acquisition are seen when they are invited to communicate. For example: if we show a glass and we ask "what is this?" then the child will answer "drink" either with signs or verbal speech, likewise for example when our child shows a clock or alarm, he will give a sign to the ear or point to the wrist which indicates the hour.

Deaf people try to read the lip movements of the speaker. Some are made on the back of closed lips or on the back of the mouth so that they are not visible, or there are also speech sounds on the lips that look the same so that lip readers cannot be sure what sound they see. Actually, there are several techniques that can be used in teaching speaking to deaf students, one of which is reading speeches.

Speech Reading

Speech reading is a technique that understands speech or speaking through lip movements. Speech Reading is a technique for reading lip movements. This technique is commonly used by teachers of deaf children to teach speaking. The use of speech reading is an interesting technique. Speech reading is a reading technique that understands speech or speaking through lip movements. We try to read the lip movements of the speaker. Some are made on the back of the closed lips or on the back of the mouth so that they are not visible, or there are also speech sounds on the lips that look the same so that lip readers cannot be sure what sounds they see. This is especially troublesome for those who are deaf in the pre-emptive period.

A person can become a good speech reader if supported by good knowledge of language structure so that they can guess better about the "hidden" sounds. Speech reading is a better recognition of spoken language and sign language from visible facial, mouth, and supporting movements (seals), integration to improve speech understanding.