Gill Houghton
When former fitness instructor, doorwoman and bodyguard Gill Houghton began to lose her hearing, she turned to a lip-reading class to help her – with her six-week old baby in tow. Now only six years later, she is on her way to becoming a lip-reading teacher.
Gill began to learn to lip read just after her second child was born. Her hearing had deteriorated during pregnancy. She hoped it would help her and her eight year old son to cope with a deafened mum.
Gill has gained so much confidence that she is now studying to be a lipreading teacher. She volunteers with Action for Deafness, a Sussex charity, who sponsored her to become a lip reading teacher. Gill also takes her hearing dog to schools, educating the children about deaf awareness. She says ‘‘I do talks for hearing dogs to anyone who will listen.’’
“As a single mother with an acquired profound hearing loss, the lip-reading teachers course has been an enormously challenging experience for me,” she said. “As I am dyslexic, subjects such as vowels and consonants had just passed me by when I was at school, I just thought they were incomprehensible. I had to learn new alphabets and study vowel charts.” said Gill.
“I have achieved many things whilst on the course from doing assignments and research, to more practical stuff like going out to new venues to teach and using public transport and negotiating London streets, all of which can be challenging for deafened people.”
“The opportunity to learn has meant that my children can be proud of their mother, and that I can help others just like I was helped. Most of all, learning has given me back the sense that the world is an exciting place and that I am so lucky to be a part of it.”