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A study assessed the practical use of the simplified speech pattern approach to teaching lipreading in a tone language by comparing performance using an acoustic hearing-aid and a Sivo-aid in a tone labelling task. After initial assessment, subjects were given training to enhance perception of lexically contrastive tones, then post-tested. The test used was audio-video recorded test material in Cantonese used to assess speech receptive ability, which includes a tonal component. For each subject, visual stimuli were presented, some accompanied by an auditory signal (either speech tone or larynx tone) through either acoustic hearing aids or a Sivo-aid. One treatment used lipreading alone. Subjects in the experimental group were four profoundly deaf children; all of their deaf classmates served as a control group. Results indicated that the auditory signal contributes to tonal reception more effectively using the Sivo-aid, but some variation still occurred. It is concluded that the simplification approach allows a better match to the user's hearing capabilities, making better use of residual hearing, and allows gradual development of perceptual skills relating to suprasegmentals as well as segmentals. (MSE)