Is sign language better than lip reading?

This poem is from a Deaf child via Facebook.

Movie on 2-02-20 at 5.08 PM   NZSL (New Zealand Sign Language)

Video on 2-02-20 at 5.11 PM Speech in conversation (Note – there is no sound except the traffic noise.)

Over many years there has been widely debated over sign language and oral by many Deaf people, scientists, specialists, teachers of Education, and other people.

Remember the Second International Congress on Education of the Deaf in Milan, Italy in 1880. It was the first International Conference of deaf educators in the same year, and it was known as the ‘Milan Conference.’ This conference bought negative results by removing the use of sign language educational programs promoting strict adherence to an oralist education and made the most significant impact on the Deaf community around the world.

Why should these professors, educators, scientists believe it was wrong to use hand communicate to any Deaf people/children’s brain? They thought any Deaf children were using hands do not help the cognitive of any Deaf children/adult, but better off by using speech and sound.

Over many years ago, many Deaf children/adults spent hours and hours by learning to lip read, and they still can not pick up any sounds from the audience’s speech sounds. When any Deaf child tried to learn to speak, and their speech was bad or finding it hard to maintain their speech tones, e.g., shouting or whisper while talking. What about in the darkroom, in a noisy area/traffic area or at night time? Impossible!

There is no full data on how many percents of Deaf children/adults lipread, and it is about 25-30%. Lip reading is an amazingly ineffective way of communicating. There are many phonemes within the mouth and throat and can not be seen. Also, with the glottal consonants and most gestures of the tongue. The reason that there are about three times as many phonemes as visemes in English. Anyone who wears hearing aids – it is impossible to hear the sound of the word, for example – hair, hare, here, Catherine vs. Katherine.  There is a small number of Deaf people who can lip read better and the ability to work as a forensics lipreading.

What about reading and writing skills? Are they good at writing and reading, including understanding the words in sentences or vocabulary?  Here is one of the article which made surprise or unaware of the underlying problem through Education. Be aware of many students who are Dyslexic through education, what about Deaf children with their first language in sign language?

Here is one of the article which useful reading – under the Nuffield Foundation https://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Reading-and-Dyslexia-in-Deaf-Children-Herman-Roy-Kyle-2017.pdf

Today, there has been an increasing number of children/adults wearing cochlear implants based on the parents’ choice or adult’s choice. These children with cochlear implants have to go through post auditory or audiovisual speech processing if they have pre-lip-reading skills.

Sign language is excellent for all Deaf children and adult where they can communicate in the noisy area, in the classroom, in the playground outside, in the cafe and the list go on. If any D/deaf persons watch programmes without using sign language interpreter available in the bottom corner of the screen on the television. It is not helping them because there are too many talking, not facing or sideway to the camera even in the dark.  The important key is to put the sign language interpreter on the screen for the full time of the programme such as news. Having a sign language interpreter helps many D/deaf people including children to understand as equally to other people in the same room by not leaving any D/deaf persons out or behind. D/deaf persons are being cut off from access to essential information, resources and services due to no communication services in most countries.

In New Zealand, the Deaf community is working hard to raise awareness to have interpreter anywhere because there is an official language which passed the bill at the Government in 2006. Currently, there is new progress to have the legal recognition of national sign languages under Asia Pacific countries.