QUESTIONS WELL SOLVED 2025/2026
Lip Reading - correct answer ✔✔Using only the visual signal and related facial and body
gestures to recognize speech
Speechreading - correct answer ✔✔Using the visual speech signal and the auditory signal and
related facial and body gestures to recognize speech
Speechreading Factoids - correct answer ✔✔Babies can speech read!
- Infants shift their focus of attention to the mouth of the person who is talking when they first
start babbling
- Focus on the mouth for several months until they master the basic speech forms of their
native language
- Campbell surveyed the literature and found 38-58% of individuals with HL have accompanying
*visual deficiencies*
- Vision loss may be greater among individuals with HL
- Individuals with HL need vision evaluation
- Three of the lipreading methods introduced into the US were implemented by individuals with
normal hearing until adulthood, at which time they acquired a significant hearing loss, and
sought assistance
- They developed methods that bear their names: Bruhn, Kinzie, and Nitche
- When BOTH auditory and visual information is available, individuals with hearing loss tend to
do better on communication tasks
- Example (Auditory plus Vision):
→ Speech Recognition Score (auditory only) = 50%
→ Speechreading Score (vision only) = 20%
,→ Combined Visual/Auditory Score = 90%
- The greater the hearing loss, the more reliant on visual signal for speech recognition
- Auditory cortex is active with tasks of vision only speech recognition
Visibility of Sounds - correct answer ✔✔Some phonemes more visible than others
- consonants with lip closure
- consonants with tongue to front of mouth
Vowels not considered highly visible
- more acoustically salient
Most people recognize less than 20% of words in a vision-only test condition
Rapidity of Speech - correct answer ✔✔- Average 150 to 250 words per minute
- Speaking rate varies according to:
→ emotion
→ social etiquette
→ fatigue
→ articulation style
Coarticulation and Stress Effects - correct answer ✔✔- Coarticulation
→ same phoneme may look different
→ influenced by vowel following consonant
- Same word looks different depending on speaker's stress
- "Can you turn your music down, please?" vs "Can you turn your music down, please?"
Speech Sounds and Words - correct answer ✔✔- *Visemes* are groups of sounds that appear
similar on the mouth
,- *Homophenes* are (sometimes very different) words that appear the same on the mouth
- Context clues
- Grammatical cues
Talker Effects - correct answer ✔✔- The same sound can often look different when spoken by
two or more different people.
- For example, the degree of mouth opening, or a person's accent can alter the look of sounds
from person to person.
Speechreading and Processing - correct answer ✔✔- *Audiovisual Integration* occurs, although
it is not clear the mechanisms through which it happens
- Multi-modal perception or cross modal perception
→ what we hear affects what we see
→ what we see affects what we hear
→ McGurk Effect
Speechreading and Processing and Lexical Neighborhoods - correct answer ✔✔- How/when
does audiovisual integration occur?
1. Perception of auditory and visual signals
2. Integration of both signals
3. Decision about phoneme/word
- Does age affect audiovisual integration ability and thus speech reading ability?
- Do lexical neighborhoods affect speech reading ability?
Factors that Affect the Speechreading Process - correct answer ✔✔How well a person can
speech read is affected by at least four factors:
- the message
- the speechreading environment and communication
, - the talker
- the speech reader
Speechreader - correct answer ✔✔Speechreading is impaired by the speech readers
- degree and type of hearing loss
- visual acuity
- emotional state
- stress level
- innate ability
Predictive Factors
- cognitive skills
→ working memory
→ processing speed
- age
- congenital hearing loss
Vision Only - correct answer ✔✔- In these tests, the visual signal typically is comprised of the
talker's head and shoulders, with the talker and patient head on
- The talker should be well lit, so his or her face is fully visible and not in shadows
Audition Plus Vision - correct answer ✔✔- The auditory signal is presented along with the visual
signal, usually at a conversational level and sometimes with background noise such as speech
babble
Efficacy of Speechreading Training - correct answer ✔✔- Studies are mixed regarding
demonstrating improvement following treatment for adults
- Little research regarding children