Tunnel vision
door Petra Beckers
Calls for transparent mouth caps are getting louder and louder
Mouth caps from hearing care professionals, audiologists, physicians, nurses, dentists prevent speech loss
Mouth caps are indispensable in this coronation era, but not equally useful for everyone. Hearing impaired and deaf people can no longer see the mouth of their doctor or nurse. Lip-reading what is officially called speech loss is therefore not possible, while mouth image and facial expressions are extremely important for understanding speech.
With closed masks, hearing impaired and deaf people can no longer see anything. Lip-reading and therefore communication is impossible due to a lack of the mouth image. Moreover, for deaf people, facial expressions belong to sign language, which gives meaning to the gestures. Wearing an opaque mouth shield hinders communication.
“I had the feeling that a lot of people are forgotten,” says the American student Ashley Lawrence (21). She therefore decided to make her own special mouthguards where the mouth is visible.
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