Harley, the Hearing Dog
Harley stole the show at the latest lipspeaker training weekend in Birmingham.
Harley’s owner Tom gave a humorous and insightful delivery to the trainees about how his dogs have given him the confidence to live a full and meaningful life after acquiring hearing loss.
“Life was very different before learning about the support and comfort a hearing dog can bring”.
Tom explained to us about the work that the charity ‘Hearing Dogs for Deaf People’ do. He shared with us how Harley is his world. Very moving.
Preparing to Lipspeak
Preparing to lipspeak with lipreaders was the recurring theme for the weekend’s training. Led by Suzie Jones, students researched the various domains, settings and types of work within those settings such as Health, Legal, Community, and began to look at how the lipspeaker can provide communication support for lipreaders. Knowing the limitations to lipreading and how, within their professional role, they can support the deaf person; how they can work without disempowering their client and indeed, who is their client!
Deaf blind Awareness
Laughter and empathy took over the classroom as our trainees experienced what it’s like to be Deafblind. “Humbling-Scary-Upsetting-Frightening” some of the adjectives used to describe the experience.
We currently have 16 student lipspeakers, all doing exceptionally well and looking for shadowing opportunities from qualified lipspeakers. If you have any bookings that may be suitable for student lipspeakers to shadow, please do let Lesley know. By acting as a role model you can enhance the learning experiences of students.
The mock exams will be in January 2019 and I’m confident they will all pass. But for now, they have earned a well deserved break for Christmas.
