When she became hard of hearing 15 years ago, she began reading lips without realizing she was doing it. She is now very good at the technique but still attends the lip-reading class for psychological and emotional support, she says.

The class consists of learning lip-reading techniques and talking about problems those with hearing problems face on a daily basis, says Barbara Bishop, the lip-reading instructor at the Willows Senior Center.

No matter what degree of hearing loss a person suffers, communicating with friends and family can get tough. Both the people with the hearing loss and those trying to communicate with them experience the same frustration and anger. After awhile they sometimes completely give up.

Hearing loss isn't a problem of the few. Twenty-one million Americans have some degree of hearing loss. In fact, according to the organization Self Help for Hard of Hearing People (SHHH), hearing loss is the number one disability in the world. And it's growing worse. Every seven seconds a baby boomer turns 50. It's typically in their 50s when people begin to notice hearing loss. That's when communication problems can begin.

What's more alarming, the fastest-growing group suffering from noise-induced permanent hearing loss is teenagers because of loud music. Not surprising, then, is the fact that 60 percent of inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame are hearing impaired.

Other than learning sign language or having relatives and friends write down what they want to say, the only alternatives left for people with hearing loss are learning to read lips or withdrawing altogether, says Marcia Fariss, a semiretired audiologist who teaches lip-reading through West Valley College.

Her classes are held at the Saratoga Senior Center and at the Addison-Penzak Jewish Community Center of Silicon Valley in Los Gatos. Fariss' students range in age from their 50s to their 90s, and their hearing loss ranges from minimal to near-deafness.

Betty Canote switched from Fariss' class to Bishop's class. The main difference is Bishop uses sign language, lip-reading and a special microphone in her class.

Canote has had a hearing impairment most of her life and has been lip-reading for 13 years. The hearing loss is genetic in her case. Canote's children have hearing problems, as did Bishop's father and grandfather. Bishop has been hard of hearing since the sixth grade and has had a hearing dog in the past.

Lip-reading can make a significant difference for those with hearing loss. Because Jane Krezman works with the public, she asks customers to face her when speaking and not to cover their mouth. She tells people she is trying to lip-read and asks them to slow down their speech rather than raise their voice.

"No one can lip-read 100 percent," Fariss says. "But they can get up to 90 percent."

Benzo says she can lip-read about 80 percent. With her hearing aid in she can hear 90 percent and without it she hears 60 percent. But Florence Baglieri recommends the lip-reading class to anyone who has a hearing impairment.

Fariss says audiologists prefer the term "speech-reading" because the skill involves watching the whole face and body for clues, not just the lips. It's teachable, she says, and if a person is motivated, they are halfway there. But it takes tremendous concentration.

She says this art/science is taught phonetically. "Forget how the word is spelled," Fariss tells her students. "Go by how it looks."

Some sounds are easy to see. F, for example, is easy because the top teeth rest on the bottom lip. "You can always tell the F words," student Bob Thomas says with a laugh.

But then there are homophenous words that need to be understood in context. These are words that look alike when we say them—rabbit, rabid, rapid. Some homophenes look different written but the same when spoken—women and ribbon.

Without exaggerating her enunciation, Fariss silently mouths homophonous words to her class—math, bath, path. She faces each direction so the students can see her mouth. Her students tell her what the word is. Some get it right. Some don't.

Willow Glen resident Anthony Satariano—whose hearing was affected by working in a shipyard before World War II and serving in combat during the war—says sometimes he mistakes words or phrases for something else. But he puts what he hears in the context of what's being said or asks people to repeat themselves when necessary.

Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer Speak Out: Anthony Satariano, a longtime student of the Willows Senior Center lip-reading class, uses an assistive listening system—a special microphone—to help him hear. He lost his hearing after working in a shipyard and fighting in World War II.

Long vowels like eee or ooo are easy to see. But short vowels like "uh" or "eh" form in the back of the throat, so speech-readers can't see them.

Fariss encourages her students who get only a few words. "OK, you've got the gist of the sentence. That's good enough," she says. "You don't need to know every word to understand what the person is saying." She reminds her students to watch for context and patterns. "The brain wants to make sense of things," Fariss says.

"But," she adds, "if you don't know what the subject is, then ask." She encourages the students to tell whoever they are talking with to let them know when the subject changes.

By the time people come to Fariss to evaluate their hearing, she says, they've lost a good chunk of their high-frequency sounds. "Most people don't notice the loss until it affects the speech sounds," she says.

Bishop's classroom is an optimum place for speech-reading. Out in the real world it becomes far more difficult. Bishop encourages her students to make changes in their environment so they can hear better, like eliminating background noise such as the television or radio and situating themselves so they can read lips clearly.

Many of Bishop's students wear hearing aids so she also teaches her students about consumer rights, like having 30 days to test out a hearing aid. After returning one that doesn't work well, they can have another 30 days with the new one, she says.

Getting hearing aids can be frustrating, though, says Willow Glen resident Willa Guerra. When she first got hers every sound was amplified. Traffic was louder. She could hear her shoes squeak when she walked across the floor.

"This class is like a support group because I can come here when my friends and family are being mean to me and know that I'm not the only one that faces these problems," says Guerra, who first started using hearing aids 22 years ago.

There are various reasons for hearing loss, Bishop says. It can be genetic or the result of illness, environment or aging. Kittye Ryczkowaki lost her hearing 16 years ago because of spinal meningitis. Unlike the gradual loss due to aging, she lost her hearing suddenly. She went from hearing perfectly to not hearing over the course of one month. She has no hearing in one ear and only residual hearing in the other. Without a hearing aid she hears nothing.

"This class helps me feel connected to the human race," Ryczkowaki says. "It is very lonely not hearing people. I use lip-reading with my family and at the store. I use it every day to hear."

A former teacher, Judie Cordy realized she had trouble hearing when she couldn't hear the school bell. She saw students running around and thought there was a fight when in fact the bell had rung and they were getting ready to go to the next class. But her greatest concern was that people thought she was ignoring them.

"I was accused of not being friendly, but I just didn't hear people," says Cordy, recalling an issue with a nurse at the doctor's office. "She said I never spoke to her unless she was standing right in front of me. With my being aware I have a problem I can tell people what they need to do so I can understand them better. Most people are very accommodating. I sometimes misunderstand what people say, which is sometimes funny and sometimes not."

The first class can be emotional for students, Bishop says. Carol Steele began to cry as she described to the class the experience of losing her hearing.

"It excites me to be able to show Carol that we have all overcome this," Bishop says.

Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer Sympathetic Ears: Carol Steele, a first-time attendee of the Willows Senior Center lip-reading class, became emotional as she related her experiences to others in the class.

Bishop's students help Steele by telling her about phone-amplifying devices and other technology. They offer her tips and explain to Steele her rights as a hearing-impaired individual. Steele says she looks forward to getting help.

Krezman admits she also cried the first time she attended the group 13 years ago. She didn't realize she was lip-reading until her doctor told her. One of her customers, Florence Baglieri, also in the Willows Senior Center class, told her about the class.

"It is so easy to get in the depths of self-pity, and this group is great for support," Krezman says. "It is frustrating not being able to hear."

Bishop says it's often difficult to determine whether she heard something or saw it by lip-reading.

Some places are especially difficult to negotiate communication. Take the checkout line in a store, for instance. Marjory Darling, who was born with hearing loss and learned to lip-read on her own when she was 4, recalls when cash registers didn't have numbers. "I'd say, 'Excuse me,' to the clerk, 'I'm hard of hearing.' " The checker would still talk too fast but get louder and louder. "The biggest help," Darling says, "is to smile. It loosens them up."

Edna McCready, 62, has her own cash register ploy. "I say, 'I'm deaf. Please write down the total for me.' " She says the problem comes when someone wants to help. "They don't give me a chance to say it," McCready says. "They tell the cashier I'm hard of hearing. Then the clerk keeps repeating herself, and it's harder and harder to understand."

Fariss adds that this kind of help can be humiliating. "Everyone likes to be independent," Fariss says.

Then, of course, there's the stigma. Some people have a hard time wearing a hearing aid because they think it makes them look old or impaired. "Some people think hard-of-hearing people are not bright," says one of Fariss' students. "That's changing now because of all the baby boomers reaching hearing-loss age," the student says.

Stigma associated with a hearing impairment is ebbing in part because of media attention. Marlee Matlin, a deaf actress, is a regular on the popular television show West Wing. Matlin does sign language and lip-reading. And the television series Sue Thomas, F.B.Eye is based on the true story of a deaf woman who was a lip-reader for the FBI.

Lip-reading classes are growing in the Bay Area. Classes are offered at Foothill College, West Valley College, the Willows Senior Center and De Anza College. And some high schools are offering students foreign language credit for sign language classes.

Maybe this proliferation of help for the hard of hearing is because hearing loss is on the rise. From 1971 to 1991 the rate of hearing loss in the U.S. rose by 14 percent (that's after adjusting the data for population growth). What's troubling is, according to the magazine Hearing Review, more than one-third of all hearing loss is attributable to noise.

It seems that our hearing loss is a problem of prosperity. Our freeways, airports, jets, leaf blowers, loud restaurants and movie houses, our Jet Skis and snow skis and powerboats are hacking away at our hearing. President Ronald Reagan suffers noise-induced hearing loss from the pistols he shot while making movies.

Fariss says that about 15 or 20 years ago, researchers found people in nonindustrialized countries continue into their 90s with good hearing.

Whatever the cause, the hard of hearing still have the problem of communicating and still have to be tenacious and force themselves to stay connected. And those who don't have a hearing impairment can help make that job a lot easier.

To sign up for free lip-reading classes at the Willows Senior Center visit the class at 2175 Lincoln Ave. on Wednesdays, 10 a.m.­noon, or call 408.448.6400. To sign up for lip-reading classes at the Saratoga Senior Center or at the Addison-Penzak Jewish Community Center of Silicon Valley, call the West Valley College Disability and Educational Support Program at 408.741.2010 or call Marcia Fariss' voicemail at 408.741.2045, ext. 3655.

Self Help for Hard of Hearing People (www.shhh.org) is a national support and education group for people who live with hearing loss.