Do you want to communicate better?

Have you ever wondered how many times a day you’ve had to repeat yourself? It does sometimes get annoying and irritating having to repeat yourself but if you find you have to do so with both hearing and deaf individuals, then maybe you need to brush up on your communication skills!

We are a very vocal species and thus rely mainly on verbal communication; but we also rely on visual clues. Your facial expressions, your tone of voice and your body posture are all factors of communication. If even one of these factors don’t seem to fit the rest, what you are trying to communicate will probably fail to get across.

I have personally experienced people are not good communicators so below are a few pointers that could help you communicate easier with someone, be it a deaf or hearing person. Let's keep communicating!

1. No pacing! 

If you are talking to someone (particularly a deaf person) while pacing, two things are moving at once; your body and your lips. This can make it difficult and frustrating to figure out what someone is saying if you rely on lipreading like myself. If you are speaking, either move very little or not at all!

2. Mouth/lips are unobstructed 

For example, eating with your mouth full or speaking with your hands in front of your mouth. I can’t see lips if your hand is in the way! Also, talking with your mouth full distorts the shape of your mouth, making it slightly more difficult to read. It's also incredibly bad manners to speak with your mouth full. Beards and moustaches sometimes come under this however, lipreading bearded or moustached people are just slightly trickier and lipreaders are used to it, so you don’t have to shave.

3. Hand gestures 

Using your hands to enunciate or express something is sometimes an automatic reaction and is great for those who use hand gestures as an indicator as well. If the person knows little sign and incorporates it into the spoken conversation, even better!

4. Clear voice 

Do not whisper or yell. When you whisper, obviously there is not a lot of sound, so I have nothing to back up my lipreading with. When you yell, not only will you be seen as aggressive, intimidating or threatening, but yelling also distorts the shape of the mouth making it more difficult to read. Just speak as normally as possible, maybe raise the voice slightly and rephrase your words.

5. Face the person at all times 

This is an absolute must. Not only is it an indicator that you are actually talking to us, but we can get a clear idea of the conversation through lipreading and interpreting facial expressions. A lot of conversation indicators are found on the face, which is why it is essential to look at the person you are talking to.

I have also done a youtube video for this as well, which you can check out by following this link: http://youtu.be/nkCAwUIO1Pc