LIP-READING CLASSES

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 166, 9 April 1921, Page 6

LIP-READING CLASSES

TO BE ESTABLISHED FOR DEAF

ADULTS

The Education Department' has already established special classes for children who have defective hearing or defective speech. Such classes are at present in operation in Wellington, Dunedin, and Auckland, and are conducted by teachers who have received special training fol the work at Sumner. The case of adults suffering from defective hearing has recently been engaging the attention of the Department, and the Minister (the Hon. C. J. Parr) has now given directions for classes to lie provided on at least two evenings of each week for the instruction of deaf adults in the ant of Lipreading. . ~ , The classes will be held m the centres named above. Many adults have made application to the Department already for such assistance as the classes are intended to afford. The Minister stal ed yesterday that the best way for adults to gain proficiency :n lip-reading was for them to watch a class of deaf children being taught. Thus it would have been beat for the adults to have attended the special daylight classes for children, and to have watched operations there. JHe objection to evening classes was that artificial light was not quite so good as daylight for lip-reading, but then the many adults who wished to avail themselves of instruction were unable to attend any classes unless tlley were held m the evenin'’.?. The evening classes would involve little or no extra expense to the Departsient, because the instruction would be given by Hie present special teachers for the children’s classes.