The person behind this venture is Dr Mary Allen. Dr Mary worked 17 years in the Public Service, both State and Federal governments, before taking up the world of academia. As a result of many years study at the University of South Australia, Dr Mary graduated with: Bachelor of Arts (Liberal Studies) degree (Information Management and Italian Studies); Honours degree in Bachelor of Arts (Communication Studies); Doctor of Philosophy (Education). The Doctoral research thesis topic was Learning to Lipread with Computers in Open Learning Environments. As part of the research, Dr Mary developed this CD-ROM for learning lipreading from home computers. The CD-ROM is an interactive multimedia software, aimed at adults with acquired hearing loss. To assess the effectiveness of this software, it was trialled on 38 postlingual deafened adults over a period of 10 weeks doing one lesson a week. It was found from the pre versus post test results that the CD-ROM is effective and that people can benefit from it. This software program is extremely useful to people who cant access lipreading classes due to physical constraints or who live in remote areas. Lipreading wont solve all communication problems, as one is not able to lipread everything, but it can aid the communication process. Dr Mary has presented several papers on her research at International and National Conferences in the USA, UK, and Australia. Dr Mary is keen in promoting lipreading, as it is her belief that it can help people with a hearing loss to understand speech easier. She herself has a severe hearing loss, due to maternal rubella, and uses lipreading. Dr Mary lipreads very well, and has won a few awards in the National Better Hearing Lipreading Competitions - the best being 1st place in 2000. At the present time, Dr Mary is teaching lipreading to a class of hard of hearing adults; in a room at the local deaf society, using the computers as the teaching tool and this software program for the lessons.

Address: Lipread, P.O. Box 412, Marden. S.A. 5070, AUSTRALIA
Website: http://www.lipread.com.au/