LIP-READING FOR DEAF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19124, 16 September 1925, Page 12

LIP-READING FOR DEAF.

A CLASS IN CHRISTCHURCH. SPLENDID RESULTS ACHIEVED. [BT TELEGRAPH. —OWN CORRESPONDENT.] CHRISTCHURCH. Tuesday. In a little second storey room in Cathedral Square, Christchurch, there gather each week some twenty men and women who, deprived "of their hearing, are instructed in the, art of lip reading. In that room people . who have been deaf for years have been taught to "hear." Young women and young men alike who brooded over their affliction have been imbued with new life as a result of the teaching thpy have received from the tutor of the class, Mr. J. M. B. Crawford. Mr. Crawford is the principal of the Sumner School for the deaf, and although the class is outside his official duties no charge whatever is made for tuition. That the method of Mr. Crawford's instruction is both explicit and interesting and that the people attending the classes are anxious to learn is borne out by the wonderful results that have been achieved during the last two years. Practical evidence of progress is . generally manifest after the first few lessons and people who haver been attending the class for 18 months and less are now able to converse with their friends with the same ease and complacency as those who are in full possession of the sense of hearing. There is not one attending the classes who is not wholly deaf but with one or two exceptions it would bo impossible for an outsider in conversation with any of the students to detect their affliction.