My audiology student clinician actually recommended them to me as I need to lip read to augment my hearing aids and sent me a link. I haven’t ordered one as I don’t go out anywhere public enough indoors that I would benefit from someone who is speaking to me wearing one. If need to continue sequestering at home goes on for longer may suggest them to family members.
I hate o break it to you but I don’t think wearing those will help you lip read other people.
I joke! I assume you have close ones that could wear them for your benefit.
Here’s another option, coincidentally from the same country as the virus itself.
I use a plastic face shield because I prefer to not have my glasses fog up, and for some odd reason, none of the usual strategies for mask-wearing with glasses work for me. I haven’t had any one with hearing issues comment on whether it’s helpful, but I do have one co-worker with known hearing issues. I can ask her if she thinks it does any good.
In the last week or two face shields were implicated in an outbreak in Switzerland and they’ve been warning against relying on them without a mask.
There are numerous ways to get masks to fit properly without fogging.
Looks like others are thinking along the same lines… Can we really walk around for the next year with our mouths hidden from sight? I don’t think so!
…But most masks come with significant social downsides: They hide smiles and obscure expressions, and can telegraph suspicion or danger. And they can be a serious impediment for the 10 million Americans like Cournoyer who are deaf or hard of hearing.
…
It’s not just those with hearing loss who are clamoring instead for cloth face masks that have a see-through panel. They are a hot item among teachers, for example, and others who work with children or the elderly. Vendors on the craft site Etsy have taken up the call, with masks of varying quality and design.
…
As pointed out above:
Transparent face shields might seem an obvious alternative, but they are open at the bottom, and not recommended by the CDC “for normal everyday activities or as a substitute for cloth face coverings,” according to agency’s website. And after a coronavirus outbreak in a Swiss restaurant recently — one in which employees wearing face shields became infected with the virus, while those in cloth masks didn’t — health officials in Switzerland and some European countries also have been panning reliance on face shields.
No, I don’t need that. But there are reasons why everyone’s communication would improve if we could see each other’s mouths.
Just posting to say I’m in exactly the same boat, except that my hearing is even worse than yours. Even with state-of-the-art hearing aids my hearing is wretched and people have to enunciate slowly for me; seeing their lips helps, and I need all the help I can get. As someone already mentioned, what you and I need is for other people to be wearing see-throughs.
BTW and not that you asked, I’m male, nearly 70, and was afflicted with profound hearing loss in my mid 50’s (congenital condition I’d been unaware of until it struck).
Hello, Fellow Old, Hard-of-Hearing Person! (You can walk on my lawn if you want to. 
)
I just ordered these from amazon. I really hope window masks catch on. The reality is we’re going to be wearing masks for a looooong time, and we can’t cover half our faces for the next year.
Let us know how they work. I’m curious if there’s enough fabric for easy breathing without air getting forced in/out the sides to compensate for less permeable area.
Here’s more on the subject.
…For people who can’t hear, the ubiquity of masks “makes them feel isolated,” said Brianna Kinney, who is Travers’s audiologist at ENT and Allergy Associates of Florida. “They can’t communicate on their own. So they’re relying on a loved one, which is very difficult. … It takes away that independence.”
Travers posted a photo of his wife wearing a window mask in a few Facebook groups for people who are deaf and hard of hearing. His wife and stepson recently designed a website to streamline the ordering process. Travers, a stay-at-home dad, now spends most of his day sewing. He purchased a sewing book and learned about seams, thread and backstitching. He can make one of his window masks in about five minutes.
When people buy his masks, they sometimes include a comment that explains why they need one or how it will help in their everyday life. Many want to wear one for the same reason Travers’s wife did. They have family members who read lips. A school for the deaf ordered a batch for the upcoming year.
Others have joined in, too. Some schools have purchased window masks because they want students to see teachers’ facial expressions and watch their lips move. One Publix store employee wanted to wear one so customers could see her smile. Impressed by that gesture, Travers wrote a letter to her manager, which was shared widely on social media. Others who work for the grocery store chain followed suit — so many that Travers has a green mask on his website designed for Publix employees.
As someone who spent years becoming a keen observer of people’s expressions, Travers knows the masks have value beyond the transmission of language.
“Your smile is the door opener,” Travers said. “That’s going to make a person feel comfortable or not comfortable. So for me, the bottom line for this mask is communication, but it is communication through a smile.”
I recently bought an Elfin Book - as mrAru jokingly refers to it as whiteboard notebook =) It is wet erase sheets bound into a notebook, half lined and half unlined. With the special pens, you just wipe it clean and start over - it comes with an app to screenshot into PDF - I absolutely love it, and it doesn’t make me rummage for clean paper if I want to make notes.
I’m up the same creek. I didn’t realize how much I was lip reading until masks came on the scene (also have hearings aids but even in ideal situations they augment only about 70-80% of lost sound). I’ve decided to just struggle through til the need for masks is abated. Others’ health, the community’s health and my own health is more important than hearing everything the first time around.
I do miss smiles though. I try to make a point to tell people “I’m smiling at you behind my mask”. I usually get a “I’m smiling back at you”.
Ooh, thanks for the link. I’m teaching Chaucer this semester (hopefully, if the class makes, knock on wood), and I think it will make teaching Middle English pronunciation in a mask WAY easier.
Speech to text is nice in theory.
Often news programs use speech to text for instant reporting. My family has gotten used to my giggles during dire news segments, because the speech to text is so garbled. The 25-acre fire can become the bird sitting on the wire.
For the one-on-one conversations, paper and pencil work best.
~VOW
@aruvgan
I checked out the Elfin book. Extremely impressive!
I think it’s a little too snazzy for my needs. However, I reserve the right to re-evaluate if this mask business continues forever.
Thanks for the idea!
~VOW
<impatiently taps foot… >
I’m curious whether the window gets fogged up or otherwise obscured. I’d love to order some as soon as you report back.
According to amazon, I should get them by August 5. There were other window masks at amazon but their delivery dates were in September.
There’s another line of boards similar to Elfin books worth checking out-Boogie Boards. Amazon has them. Fun, different sizes, different levels of tech, similar price point. I have several, useful and kind of fun also. They help me with memory (post traumatic brain injury) and being late age hard of hearing (genetic). My rocket scientist big brother gave me my first ones.
A Facebook friend made a bunch of her own masks with windows. I wondered what the point was. Thanks for letting me know. She must have deaf friends or family.
I don’t like the one that’s just a shield and open on the side. That wouldn’t make me feel safe if you were wearing it. (And yes, I’m that obnoxious person telling other people how to wear their surgical masks properly. You want the metal bit up high, slightly under your glasses, to reduce upwards leakage that fogs glasses.)
No one in my household is deaf. I can tell who is smiling behind their mask by looking at their eyes. I’ve been trying to buy/make masks that give me some protection, as well as the other people in the room. … I’m going to wait for version two, the partially transparent mask that actually works as a mask. But it does seem like a good idea.