UPDATE: FeedFliks: A New Way To Search for Netflix Instant Watch Movies with Captions
I wrote yesterday about FeedFliks, a search engine that, among other things, enables you to search for captioned InstantWatch movies on Netflix -- a great benefit for deaf Netflix users who would like to watch instantly streamed movies in captions, but have limited options for searching and viewing them. Since then, Mike Chapman, the creator and editor of the "ncmacasl" InstantWatch captioned database which I also cited yesterday, sent a tweet in response, saying that FeedFliks is not the only automated search engine with the capability of searching for captioned InstantWatch movies. He pointed me to InstantWatcher.com, which apparently does the same job as FeedFliks in searching for captioned instant-streaming movies. Chapman further said that his own website, at 580+ movies and counting, is still the largest database of captioned InstantWatch movies. An admirable feat, when you consider that he has to manually search for these movies himself (now with some help from the web community).Thanks, Mike Chapman, for sharing.
Making Travel Websites Accessible For Blind Travelers
Before the late 1990s, air travel was often booked through airlines and travel agents, either in person or over the phone. After the Internet was widely adopted in the mid-1990s, online travel booking websites like Expedia and Orbitz took on the lion's share of the work done by travel agents, leveling the playing field for deaf and hard-of-hearing travelers who otherwise needed help booking over the phone, or drove to the nearest travel agent office to make their arrangements. Yet, what has been an immeasurable benefit for deaf travelers has come at the expense of blind travelers, who find these online travel websites difficult to access, and continue to arrange their itineraries by phone or in person, or rely on sighted people to make the online arrangements for them.The explosion of online travel booking websites has made it significantly easier for most travelers to make their own travel arrangements -- it takes just a few minutes to purchase airfare and book a hotel, compared to the one hour it usually takes over the phone (mostly waiting time). Yet, in today's transformed travel landscape, where travel agents have less clout, and mom-and-pop travel agencies are closing up shop, it is increasingly more difficult for blind travelers to navigate the travel booking business. Which is unfortunate because the best airline deals are usually found online.This may be about to change. On Monday, the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) announced an agreement with Travelocity, one of the leading online travel agencies, to make Travelocity's web site more accessible to people with blindness. As part of the agreement, by July 2011, Travelocity will make its home page and search pages accessible, and its entire web site will be fully accessible to the blind by the end of March 2012.With this announcement, Travelocity becomes the first major online travel agency to commit to ensuring its website is accessible to travelers with blindness. Other major online travel websites such as Expedia and Orbitz still contain significant accessibility barriers for travelers. And in today's Web 2.0 environment, when travelers increasingly go to meta-search engines like Kayak and Hipmunk to find the best travel deals, these meta-search engines are not easily accessible for the blind, either.As more business-to-consumer and business-to-business transactions are increasingly being conducted online on both desktop and mobile devices, web accessibility for people with disabilities has become mission-critical. It is not simply enough to be able to buy books and kitchen gadgets on Amazon.com, or to bid for antiques on eBay. Starbucks recently announced that its Starbucks Card mobile app now enables you to pay for your coffee with your smartphone. In an increasingly cashless economy, blind consumers should not only be able to book their airline tickets on the Web, but also carry out transactions on other Websites and mobile devices. Travelocity's announcement only scratches the surface of what is possible, not only for blind travelers, but for all consumers with disabilities.
Googling "Gone with the Wind"
The New York Times reported yesterday that YouTube, a Google subsidiary, is in negotiations to purchase Next New Networks, the leading provider of original video programming for the Internet. While it is too early to comment because it is not a done deal, this has some interesting implications for the deaf and hard-of-hearing community. Even if this deal falls through, it would not be surprising if there are future efforts to acquire companies that independently produce original video content for the Web.As a video site best known for hosting mom-and-pop video content, YouTube's possible acquisition of Next New Networks would effectively bring YouTube into more direct competition with commercial video content distributors like Hulu and Netflix. In the accessibility space, what separates YouTube from Netflix is its pioneering automatic transcription technology, which automatically captions any spoken dialogue on its videos without any human intervention. Does it mean that automatic transcription will extend to content that is typically the domain of Hulu and Blip.tv? As it stands today, independent web providers have not responded well to requests to caption their content.While automatic transcription is not a sure thing today -- its accuracy is far below acceptable access standards for closed-captioning, and it may take years for the accuracy to approach that of an average-quality human captioner -- there is the possibility that deaf and hard-of-hearing people could start to enjoy so-called Webisodes on a par with their hearing peers, with little or no cost to the Webisode providers.In the last ten years, the deaf and hard-of-hearing community has found itself increasingly shut out of most video content on the Internet. Prior to the advent of the Internet as a mass medium in the mid-1990's, all commercial video content not shown at movie theaters was shown on only one other medium -- the television set. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, the Television Decoder Circuitry Act of 1990, and a comprehensive closed captioning infrastructure made it possible for the deaf and hard-of-hearing to enjoy closed captioned video content on almost the same terms as their hearing peers. There was no other major video distribution medium besides the television and the silver screen, so the existing captioning infrastructure was adequate to address all available video content then as required by law.While the pre-broadband Internet had some negative impact on video accessibility for the deaf, the arrival of YouTube and the wide adoption of broadband Internet resulted in an explosion of video content which is not closed captioned, and far outnumbers traditional TV and movie content. While most online video content is non-commercial (i.e., uploaded by individuals like you and me) and thus out of the realm of commercial captioning agencies, there are hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of hours of commercially produced online video content that is not required to be captioned under existing pre-2010 laws. The recently signed Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010, the first major law ever to mandate captioning for Internet-broadcast videos, only covers online content originally broadcast on television. However, even if all online video content is required to be captioned, the current infrastructure cannot support captioning of all video content. The lack of a digital/online video broadcasting format standard and the sheer amount of online commercial video content are major roadblocks.From a business standpoint, it makes practical sense that YouTube would consider this acquisition. It is the Wild West in the online video programming arena -- network-supported Web channels are battling with scores of independent web networks that have sprung up in the past several years. Yet, in any industry that sees too many companies pursuing the same set of consumers, it is inevitable that at some point there will be fewer existing web networks, as many of them will either die out, or be acquired by larger companies including traditional cable and broadcast networks, and major video content distributors such as Google.The coming industry consolidation may make it easier for the remaining companies to support captioning standards for their video content. Whether it is automatic transcription, or other pieces of technology that can address the issue of captioning millions of hours of online video content, it is highly likely that something will be done to effectively address online video accessibility for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. There is a strong business case for this: transcribing all video content will make the video content searchable. As the world's leading search engine, Google -- the parent of YouTube -- already recognizes the value of entering the video programming arena.
Abledbody.com: Iceland's "Magga" Shines As First Deaf Parliament Member
During my visit to Iceland this summer, I met Sigurlín Margrét Sigurðardóttir, who was the first deaf person to serve in the Parliament of Iceland. She is a very fascinating individual. I enjoyed listening to her stories about her time in Parliament, and her insights on the deaf and hard-of-hearing community in Iceland. This had special resonance for me as a deaf person, because many years ago as a high school exchange student, I lived with a family in Iceland for an entire summer -- one of the most memorable experiences of my childhood. I have written a profile of Sigurlín Margrét Sigurðardóttir at Abledbody.com -- click through to read the article.
Abledbody.com: A Steering Wheel With Ideas Of Its Own
In my latest article for Abledbody.com, I write about the potential of GPS devices for the deaf based on technology that provides tactile feedback, without the use of difficult-to-hear voice prompts common on current GPS devices. To read the article, click here!
UPDATE: To Caption Or Not To Caption A Movie About Autism?
An update to this article I wrote yesterday: Gerardine Wurzburg, the director of "Wretches & Jabberers," a film about two autistic men traveling to three foreign countries, announced that its premiere at the Vermont International Film Festival on October 22nd "will be open captioned to insure full access to the film." The two other showings of the movie at the film festival will continue to be open captioned as previously scheduled.
To Caption Or Not To Caption A Movie About Autism?
Historically, people with autism were usually excluded from society, and even today this is an unfortunate fact of life in different cultures around the world. "Wretches & Jabberers," a film by Gerardine Wurzburg about two autistic men traveling to different countries, challenges long-standing assumptions people harbor about autistic people in general. In this film, Larry Bissonnette and Tracy Thresher, who are autistic, visit three countries with vastly different cultures -- Sri Lanka, Japan and Finland -- and fight prevailing attitudes in these countries about their own disability.Sounds like a fantastic movie and I plan to see it soon. Which is why the decision not to caption the movie's premiere at the Vermont International Film Festival in late October is very puzzling. I first heard about this movie from a deaf friend in Vermont who was excited to attend the premiere. However, when she inquired about captioning for this film, the associate producer of "Wretches and Jabberers," Dan Curl, replied to her:
"I apologize but the festival organizers would like the film to premiere in its original format as envisioned by the director. I have requested that the two additional screenings in the festival be open captioned: Oct. 24th at 1:15pm & Oct. 26th at 3:30pm . They are happy to oblige. I hope you can make it to one of these showings and enjoy the film. Thank you for your support!"
I previewed the "Wretches & Jabberers" trailer -- which is captioned -- and it is not clear why the festival organizers would like the film to go without captions at its premiere. What is meant by "original format as envisioned by the director?" Do they not want deaf and hard-of-hearing people to attend the festival premiere of the movie? So much for the inclusion which the two autistic men in the film are fighting for.International film festivals, such as the one in Vermont, usually have foreign films in their native languages that come with English subtitles, so there should be no arbitrary decision on what specific screening times a film should be captioned. The premiere will be shown at 6:30 on a Friday evening, which is usually a social evening and the most convenient time to see a movie. The captioned versions will be shown during the day on Sunday and Tuesday, when some people have day jobs and other commitments.But even then, that is not the point. Elaine Morse, a deaf Vermont resident, said, "The organizers are essentially saying, yes, we will allow you to see the film with captions, but you have to go at another time. We don't want the captions during the premiere. In other words, we don't want people with disabilities attending our premiere."If the associate producer of a movie -- the same movie which challenges cultural beliefs that exclude a whole disability group -- listens to the wishes of organizers of a local festival and removes captions for its premiere, this defeats the purpose of the movie which is to educate the general public about the experiences of two men with a disability who were excluded from society for much of their early lives.After all, on the aforementioned trailer, there are open captions which are part of the film. On some scenes, the men use a communication device -- which spells words out on a screen -- to communicate. One of the men says, "People all want communication."People all want communication. The festival organizers want the film to premiere without captions. How is it considered "communication?"
Abledbody.com: The 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act
After passing in the Senate last week, the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, which will improve access to mobile content for the deaf and blind communities, will soon become law.This means deaf consumers can now watch closed-captioned shows and movies on the Web on their PC or mobile devices. Before, closed-captions were only available on TVs. Blind consumers will also benefit from limited hours of video-description services on the Web, and the law will require touch-screen smartphones that have Web features to be made accessible to them.To read the full article, click through to my original link on Abledbody.com.
Is It Better To Call Someone "Stupid"?
One night, as a young kid learning about the deafness I was born with, I asked my mother how I became deaf. She explained that she got German measles when she was pregnant with me. Confused, I went to the World Book Encyclopedia in the family’s living room to look up the term “German measles.” In a pregnant mother, the encyclopedia said, it can cause “deafness, blindness, or mental retardation” in the unborn baby.So I had the answer to the cause of my deafness. But, still curious, I asked my mother what “mental retardation” meant. In the simplest terms she could explain to a 6-year-old boy, she said it meant people who had a hard time thinking.Over the years, in my uninitiated view of the disability world, I always viewed “mental retardation” as a clinical term that described a variety of conditions, including Down syndrome, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), even autism. Now as an adult, I know this term is very muddily defined. For example, autism is not always indicative of mental retardation, as there are autistic individuals who demonstrate extremely high intellectual functioning. But how is "mental retardation" clearly defined, per se?I noticed, over the past 10 to 15 years, an increased use of the word “retarded” as a way to insult someone, typically one who made a stupid comment or a not well-thought-out decision. Knowing what it felt like to be insulted as a deaf child, the indiscriminate use of the word “retarded” to describe stupidity did not sit well with me. On the other hand, as far as I could tell over the years, there was little noticeable effort to publicize the inappropriate use of the word “retarded” until recently.Now, prompted in part by Rahm Emanuel’s unfortunate use of this term to refer to some activist members of his own political party, and the publicity surrounding Sarah Palin’s son Trig, who has Down syndrome, a bill has been introduced in the U.S. Senate to remove the term “mental retardation” from all references in federal law and replace it with “intellectual disability." Unofficially named Rosa’s Law in recognition of a Maryland girl with an intellectual disability, it will be marked up to a Senate committee on Wednesday and is expected to pass the full Senate.Making a determination as to what words are both socially acceptable and respectful of a certain group is always a messy affair which takes time to sort out. However, as long as efforts are continually made to describe certain people with disabilities (PwDs) in more progressive and socially acceptable terms, they always redound toward building mutual respect and trust between PwDs and the community at large. This is a much better option than maintaining the status quo where unthinking people bandy around words describing certain groups of people, as a way to insult others.If, in a fit of anger, you have to, have to, HAVE TO insult someone, it is far more appropriate to call that person "stupid," not "retarded." At least in Rahm Emanuel's case, calling some liberal activists "stupid" would have kept the debate squarely on President Obama's health care bill, which was what the fight was originally all about.But, ideally, no insults would be even better.Disclosure: I am not affiliated in any way with the "End the Word" campaign at www.r-word.org.
Abledbody.com: iPhone Movie Captioning App To Be Shelved?
Last month, I wrote here on abledbody.com about a new captioning application for the iPhone, called Subtitles, that lets deaf and hard-of-hearing moviegoers follow the dialogue of almost any movie in any movie theater in the nation. Earlier this week, Dan Walker was notified by Apple that his app violated movie studio copyrights relating to transcripts, and rejected his latest update. While an earlier update is working, there is a possibility his app may be rejected outright.To read my article on the Subtitles for iPhone app, click here.
Let Your Fingers Do The Hiring: Part 2
Following up on everyone’s feedback and my response, I would like to add further clarity and color to my original article on Braille and employment.Born profoundly deaf, I often swam against the tide of popular opinion about deaf and hard-of-hearing people, just as successful non-Braille users did in swimming against the tide of popular opinion about blind and visually-impaired people which assumes that all blind people use Braille. While myriad educational choices were, and are, always available to deaf children – whether to teach speaking and listening, whether to teach sign language, or teach both, or follow other educational methods – conventional wisdom among uninformed (and I emphasize uninformed) hearing people was that pretty much all deaf people signed. This impression has made its way into popular media and informs general cultural discussions with regard to the deaf community. For that reason, many hearing people who approach me assume that I grew up relying on sign language to succeed, when that was never the case. I grew up learning to speak and listen, and did not learn sign language until I was 21 years old. Even then, sign language is not my primary mode of communication. I am most comfortable conversing in spoken English.This does not mean that I am against sign language. I am happily fluent in it, and have many deaf friends who I communicate with in sign language. I know many deaf people who have grown up being taught sign language, and have become successful and happy in their lives. Although sign language is the best known, and very popular, mode of communication in the deaf community, it is one of many different and equally valid educational flavors, each with its own strengths and shortcomings.For several decades until the end of the 1970’s, oral education for the deaf was implemented for as many deaf children as possible with little consideration for individual differences. While I have greatly benefited from oral education and count many other deaf friends who benefited as well, I cannot say that this approach was as beneficial for all deaf children. It was an “unmitigated disaster” for the deaf community in that many deaf children who otherwise needed sign language were denied it, sometimes by force. That is why in the 1980’s and particularly 1988 with the Deaf Power Now movement at Gallaudet, there was a backlash against oral education and increased interest in education through sign language, or bilingual education using sign language and English. This trend, however, was not helpful for some deaf children for which the oral or auditory-verbal option could have been more appropriate.By a similar token, uninformed sighted people think every blind person uses or should use Braille, when that has never been, and should never be, the case. Braille is not always appropriate for everyone in the blind community. That 90% of employed people know Braille means that the other 10% who are employed do not use Braille and still were employed.The point of my article is that Braille has become less accessible to blind people who have a need for it. It does not overtly say that Braille should be the be-all and end-all for every blind person, only that it is an essential tool to enable blind people to more effectively use the written word. My article is critical of the school administrators who made assumptions that non-Braille technologies are good enough for blind children, without examining carefully the skills and abilities of each child and whether that child has a need for Braille support. A school administrator who is extremely knowledgeable about the value of the Braille system, and extremely knowledgeable about the value of other assistive technologies for the blind, is in a much better position to evaluate the educational needs of a blind child than one who is not as knowledgeable. If that administrator says that this child does not need Braille to have a good education, then that administrator’s word carries far more credibility than the word of another administrator who cannot claim to have that level of knowledge. I take to task the educators who are not as informed or ignorant of the subtle and not-so-subtle issues in the blind community, and yet make decisions that impact the lives of blind children. This has unfortunately been a problem in the past couple of decades as the number of blind people using Braille declined.Technology is an empowering tool for people with disabilities, and also a tool that should be used carefully and appropriately – especially in cases where non-technological approaches can be just as beneficial, if not more so, to a person with a disability. I have had a cochlear implant (CI) for five years and I love it. Children as young as 8 months have undergone surgery for CI’s. The popular media has called the CI a device that “cures” their deafness and helps them to “hear again” (as if babies born deaf had ever heard sound in the first place!). This has given some parents the mistaken assumption that the CI will fix everything that is wrong with the baby’s hearing – when that is never the case. Consistent therapy, lots of elbow grease, and active parental involvement are essential to the educational success of a child implanted with a CI.This is the important rule that should be observed no matter what type of disability: evaluate each person on an individual basis, and evaluate that person well in the context of known tools, devices, and methods that have been verified to succeed for other persons with the same disability. It’s the approach I have tried to take in my writings and commentaries about issues relevant to people with disabilities, especially in the business world.
Let Your Fingers Do The Hiring: Responding to Your Comments
Last week, I wrote an article about Braille, the blind, and unemployment, titled, “Let Your Fingers Do the Hiring: Blind People and Employment.” With one exception to date, blind people I reached out to, or who posted comments on my blog, were positive in their praise of my article. My followup post is in response to a successful blind professional who wrote a point-by-point response that challenges the points I presented in my article. Given the points he made, his response is best addressed here in a full post instead of in the Comments section.Michael Squillace, a software engineer who is blind and does not use Braille, has posted his comments here in full. Below are my responses, with Squillace's comments in italics:
Since you have seemed to come up empty-handed in terms of finding information regarding, "..blind people who were able to lead quality lives without the use of Braille," let me assure you that there are plenty of us.
I stand by my article 100%. Perhaps some sentences could have been phrased better, but my basic argument remains unchanged.People who succeeded in their lives and careers without relying on Braille should definitely be recognized. When I searched on the web for, and inquired around about, blind people who grew up and how they were educated, I was very skeptical of the lack of information on blind people who were successful without Braille. I knew they were out there -- those 10% of employed and legally blind people who do not use Braille -- and I wanted to give them their due in my article, but I just had no empirical information available, and thus no stories to tell. After I posted this article, I emailed some blind people and advocates for the blind, and asked for their feedback. The comments of those who responded were uniformly positive, which surprised me given the fact that I could not find successful blind or visually-impaired people who do not use Braille.I would appreciate information on any blind people who do not rely on Braille and have become successful in their lives or careers. The more diversity, the better.Yet this is not the point of my article, which is about the decline of Braille as a result of decisions made by schools that were not well-informed and did not consider the whole spectrum of educational options available to blind and visually-impaired children. It is unfortunately an ongoing problem in other disability groups.
I resent the comment that our lives as blind persons have been an "unmitigated disaster" simply due to our not using braille, many of us by our own choice. You might just as well claim that blind people live intolerably horrible lives and have made little progress in the years since the Federal Rehabilitations Act because they did not receive, say, adequate orientation and mobility training, which many of us have not.
Yes, “unmitigated disaster” were strong words to use. There is no denying that 50% of blind people used Braille in the 1960’s and just 10% use Braille today, and that the statistics I show indicate the educational level among blind people have declined during that time. It is a disaster nonetheless, whether it was caused by declining use of Braille or other factors, and I was perhaps dramatic with the use of “unmitigated.” This does not mean that there are no blind people who have succeeded in their lives and careers without the use of Braille.This article in last December's New York Times was one of the guiding posts for my article. It examines both sides of the braille debate -- those who prefer to read print, and those who prefer to read Braille.Michael, you clearly have done well without relying on Braille, and I am not surprised there are others like you. Born profoundly deaf, I do speak and listen well, and did not learn sign language until I was 21. I worked extremely hard to be where I am in terms of spoken communication. Just as I worked very hard to learn to speak, I am sure that some blind people have to work just as hard as I did to be able to spell and write well, and it is easier for some to do so by learning Braille. This is not to say that every blind person has to learn Braille. I certainly did not need sign language in order to speak and listen well, but other deaf people I know do want sign language to aid in their educational development, and they have become successful in their lives as a result.You mentioned “many of us by our own choice.” I have no statistics or hard data, but it would be safe to assume that blind and visually-impaired people who are not successful in their careers, and do not use Braille, came into this situation through decisions made for them during their childhoods that may have something to do with not using Braille. Among the deaf and hard-of-hearing, and in other disability groups, some people have had choices made for them that in retrospect were ill-advised. For blind people who became successful, whether they rely on Braille or not, the choices they made have little to do with the points I make in my article.The other person who made a comment to my article says, and it bears repeating here: "I think the argument is that blind children need to be taught braille or they will have a strong potential to not be able to communicate in a written form effectively. Being able to write and spell is critical to getting a good job."
It is true that braille literacy has significantly decreased but that should not be equated with or somehow naturally imply that literacy or communicative skills of blind persons have diminished.
Nowhere in my article do I say that literacy has diminished, or that communicative skills have diminished. All I have written about is the ability of blind individuals to express themselves in the written word, either through Braille or without.
the fact that 90% of persons who use braille are employed should not be surprising. Since, given your own statistics, most of these adults have been of workforce age longer than those who do not learn braille, naturally they have had more of an opportunity to find stable, long-term, gainful employment. More generally, however, the fact that there is such a high unemployment rate among blind adults is, I believe, not attributable to their lack of braille usage. Rather, I believe that access to assistive technologies like screen readers and screen magnifiers in this information age significantly hinders opportunities in education, employment, and entertainment.
I cite these statistics in my article without further interpretation of the numbers. I lay out the numbers for people to digest, and have not offered further discussion on them other than to paint a fuller picture of the blind community. However, one sentence I wrote, “Employment statistics paint an even more powerful picture of how blind people live out their lives,” could have been more diplomatically worded.Can you elaborate further on what you mean about assistive technologies like screen readers and screen magnifiers, which “hinder opportunities?” How does this square with your achievements in utilizing those assistive technologies?
Also, since you are so interested in the differences among different groups of PWDS, consider that blind people still face a great deal of fear and ignorance in all walks of life. People still talk about me in the third person to my wife, still cower at my approach, and still speak to me as if I am deaf rather than blind. I do not believe that any other disability group faces more fear or ignorance on a regular basis and many (like your own) face much less. Finally, I find it a little odd that you, as a deaf person, would have so much to say about blindness and how best to cope with it. I would not think of making claims about the benefits of sign language for your community because I know so little about it and because signing is so foreign to me as a blind person. Regardless of the statistics you find so intriguing, perhaps you ought best to refrain from judging the quality of life of a group of persons so entirely different in their lifestyle and their everyday activities from your own.
It is presumptuous to say that the blind community “faces more fear or ignorance on a regular basis” than other disability groups, mine included. Each disability group has its own challenges in how it is perceived and labeled by the non-disabled population. There should not be, and never should be, any moral hierarchy among disability groups in terms of how they are negatively perceived by non-disabled people. It is enough to say that there should never be one single case of negative labeling or perception of any individual with a disability, ever.As you find it odd that I, “as a deaf person, would have so much to say about blindness and how best to cope with it,” I also find it odd that you take the moral road and say that blind people like you face more fear or ignorance than other disability groups, without knowing much about what other disability groups, including mine, face in their own worlds. Like Ana Rodarte, a woman featured on Oprah who has severe neurofibromatosis, a condition in which her face is so extremely disfigured that people scream and run away wherever she goes. Or a intelligent person in a wheelchair I met who has little control over the motor functions of his face and, as a result, drools into a cup – I have seen, to paraphrase your own words, “people talk in the third person about him, still cower at his approach, and speak of him as if he is deaf rather than mobility-impaired.” Or a child with dyslexia – people may think she is not intelligent and lacks attention, a perception that could do as much psychological damage to her self-esteem as someone who talks about a blind child in the third person and ignores him.No one should make a subjective moral determination that a group with a particular disability faces more fear or ignorance on a regular basis than another group with a different disability. We can make definitive moral determinations about individuals with disabilities based on their particular situation (i.e. a blind child in New Jersey was teased and made fun of by a group of boys, and then dragged and beaten up on the street, versus a child on a wheelchair in Texas who is just teased in the school halls but do not suffer physical abuse). But we should not make the same moral determinations about disability groups as a whole. Otherwise this invites labeling and stereotyping.Finally, in response to the comment that I “as a deaf person, would have so much to say about blindness and how best to cope with it,” where do I say in my article how blind people should cope with their own disability? I do not step on a soapbox and claim to be an expert on blindness, but instead try to draw on primary and secondary sources and comment as best I can on a disability I have no personal familiarity with. All the commentary in my article is based on information from different perspectives that are available on the web, including scientific articles, newspaper clippings, and the websites of the National Federation of the Blind (which according to the New York Times "frowns upon" reading print) and American Foundation for the Blind.Some blind and visually-impaired people, and their advocates, have written me to say it was a well-done article. Yet I do not seek perfection -- I always seek out opposing viewpoints in an effort to promote diversity, original thinking and honest critique. Thanks, Michael, for your insights and please feel free to comment anytime.
Think Beyond The Label...Not? (UPDATE: TV ads ARE Captioned & Campaign has followed up with CNN.)
UPDATE (4:15 pm ET): I have communicated with Barbara Otto at Health & Disability Advocates and she assured me that all of the "Think Beyond The Label" campaign's TV ads and other videos, including those on YouTube, are closed-captioned. She has communicated with CNN and all other media outlets to ensure that future airings of these advertisements are closed-captioned.@BeyondTheLabel posted these two messages on Twitter:
3:19 pm ET: "We are committed to making our website and tv spot accessible, and we indeed made sure our spots were CC. We're looking into CNN's issue."
3:36 pm ET: "We have contacted CNN and all our media outlets on the TV CC issue--please DM us if you see non-CC running anywhere else!"
For what it's worth, another "Think Beyond The Label" advertisement on CNN aired at 3:45 pm and it was still not closed-captioned.It appears to be a problem with CNN. Please disregard my original post.Kudos to Barbara Otto and the "Think Beyond The Label" campaign on being so quick to respond to this issue. It shows their commitment to ensuring that everyone in the community is informed of the campaign and in particular the importance of accessibility for people with disabilities to ensure that they are as productive as, if not more so, those without disabilities in the workplace.======================
UPDATE (3:00 pm ET): Barbara Otto of Health & Disability Advocates, which is leading the "Think Beyond The Label" campaign, has informed me that the TV commercial in question is indeed closed-captioned. She is following up with CNN to find out why it wasn't captioned.==========================ORIGINAL POST (2:00 pm ET): I wrote this article earlier this week about the Think Beyond The Label advertising campaign, a $4 million all-media venture aimed at educating companies about hiring people with disabilities. I was very pleased to see a campaign that used humor to dispel preconceived notions about the potential productivity of people with disabilities in the workplace.I was watching CNN this afternoon, as it started up its coverage of the advancing Snowmageddon of 2010, when it cut away to commercial. First up was a TV spot from Think Beyond The Label! Delighted, I settled in to watch the spot -- when it hit me. It is not captioned. Or closed-captioned, either. As a deaf person, I could not understand a word of what was being said. I sort of got the part at the 0:20 mark about being "coffee-impaired," as a professional woman in the spot, upon hearing something that was said, immediately spit out coffee. But that was pretty much it.For all the money they spent, and the effort they would have made in educating everyone about people with disabilities in the workplace, the people who ran the Think Beyond The Label campaign forgot the one fundamental fact: the accessibility of their very own TV commercials. This isn't thinking beyond the label.
So Who's Disabled?
Over the weekend, I came across an article in the Adventures in Modern Life blog by Ben Mattlin, a contributing editor at Institutional Investor. In it, he posts a letter from the mother of a 26-year-old woman with disabilities, expressing her offense at people who use inappropriate terms like "retarded" to describe people with disabilities. Here are a couple of excerpts from the mother's letter:
I'm privately offended by the widespread casual use of the word "retarded" as a synonym for "stupid." I hear this from people with physical disabilities as well as the able-bodied. I also wince a little whenever I hear a person with physical disabilities ranting about how people are confusing him/her with a person with cognitive disabilities just because he/she is in a wheelchair....
Going even further, it's my observation that some people with physical disabilities are prejudiced against OTHER people with physical disabilities. For example, some of my friends in wheelchairs won't consider romantic involvement with another person in a wheelchair. They see the other person's disability as an impediment, because they want their partner to be able-bodied.
What opened my eyes was Mattlin's comment to his own post:
One disability group that historically distanced itself from the rest of us is the deaf community. After all, they even have their own language! I used to wonder why my phone bill has a tax for the "deaf and disabled." Isn't that redundant? I thought.
I am deaf and have always considered myself disabled. I even write a blog that covers disability issues. I know many friends who are deaf who consider themselves part of the disabled spectrum, and also know some deaf people who do not consider themselves disabled. In a sense, deafness is an "invisible" disability, but it is a disability nevertheless.Now, when I consider myself disabled, I do not think of myself as not being able to function. I just view myself as not being able to use a part of my body that ordinarily would be used for many life activities. Initially, I was tempted to respond to Mattlin's comment by disputing his perception that the deaf community is trying to be separate from the rest of the disabled community. But after I spoke to my wife, and did some research on the web, I realized that this issue is already an open can of worms, and I cannot deny that there is a history behind Mattlin's comment.In Jamie Berke's blog About.com: Deafness, she posts this very question of how deaf people view themselves. Her title words were: "Deaf Culture - Deaf? Disabled? Both?" Apparently these questions elicited powerful responses within the deaf community, as people took every conceivable position to defend or dispute the contention that being deaf is being disabled.I am not going to go into every detail brought up in Berke's posts on this issue, because there are so many strands. However, I take serious exception to the attitude prevalent among some people within the disabilities community -- and in the technical term, I mean those who do not have effective use of a major physical, mental, or cognitive ability -- to try to consider themselves "not part" of the community. Those who do not know any other people with disabilities, and/or who are comfortable with their place in the world, are still considered part of the disabled community -- even if they do not have to take an active, physical part in this community. If they actively disown the disabilities community, perhaps out of a sense of self-consciousness, or a desire to prove themselves in the world, they are entitled to their own opinions. But they need to be sensitive to how this is perceived by others in this community, especially if they communicate their own feelings publicly.
For deaf people themselves, the fact that the disability is not physically obvious may lead some of them to not consider themselves disabled. This might stick in the craw of some people within the disabled community, considering that the population of people who are deaf or hard-of-hearing is very substantial and they have clout in politics and advocacy. I get Mattlin's point -- that the term "deaf and disabled" is redundant. I literally never thought about this contradiction until he pointed it out. Apparently, a Google search of the term "deaf and disabled" resulted in a surprisingly high number of instances of this term, both in formal names and in popular usage. Deaf and Disabled Telecommunications Program. Dogs for Deaf and Disabled Americans. On Idealist.org: "Working with deaf and disabled people."For a long time, I did not want to call myself deaf, and thus, disabled. I preferred the term "hearing-impaired." I thought it sounded less loaded and more professional, especially in the business world. I felt a bit strange coming into a business meeting or job interview, and calling myself "deaf." It was not out of any self-consciousness, or a desire to distance myself from the deaf community. At that time, I was aware that within the deaf community, the word "deaf" has so many loaded connotations. Whereas I technically considered "deaf" to simply mean someone with a hearing loss, other people used the word "deaf" to connote cultural identification (often using capital "D" instead of "d" -- in other words, "Deaf"). Even the sign for "deaf" describes both hearing loss and not using one's voice, while the sign for "hearing" does not describe the ear at all, but the mouth. (Click on this video and see the signs for "hearing" and "deaf", starting at 0:39.) I was particularly sensitive to these signs because I grew up working very hard to learn and perfect my speaking abilities even though I was born with very profound deafness (100 db in both ears). I did not want the world to think that the deaf community was all sign and no voice, considering the physical and mental investment I put into improving my speaking and listening abilities.It was all with good intentions, but there was a problem with this approach. Every time I used the word "hearing impaired," I consciously thought of my deafness. This body language was subtly apparent in my professional and social communications with hearing people, to the point that they viewed me first through a deaf lens and then through the "Michael" lens. If I wanted them to see me first as Michael, before defining me as anything else, I needed to change how I communicated myself. I found that if I called myself "deaf," instead of "hearing-impaired," it was easier and less complicated to say, and enabled me to focus on the topic at hand instead of stumbling over longer words. Moreover, trying to use the word "hearing-impaired" in the common spoken English vernacular was very awkward, and some deaf people I spoke to did not take this in a positive way because they felt I was slighting deaf culture and distancing myself from the deaf community, or even the disabilities community as a whole. No longer self-conscious, I do not care what people think of the term "deaf." I say it, usually with gusto, and then go on to the topic at hand.As a lifelong deaf person, I have a lot of admiration for the incredible diversity of deaf culture that has developed over many decades, along with the rich and varied history of American Sign Language and its international equivalents (British Sign Language, Indian Sign Language, etc.), and the oral and auditory-verbal traditions that also developed at the same time through the A.G. Bell Association and other related associations. I wish there were more politically correct signs for "deaf" and "hearing," but these signs are so deeply ingrained in communicative usage that I use them often without thinking about what they mean. I have many close friends in both the ASL and oral/auditory-verbal camps, and usually many of them are in both camps.So yes, I'm disabled. What's wrong with that?(Disclosure: I am an active member of the A.G. Bell Association.)
Making Videogames Accessible for Disabled Gamers: The Value of Brand Equity
For many people, videogames are a luxury, a guilt trip, like eating a piece of sinful chocolate. It is not always looked on favorably, usually by parents, if videogames are played more than a few hours each day. For people with disabilities, the perspective is refreshingly different. Video games have been an effective way for some people to deal with their disability and, in some cases, help them function more effectively and independently by sharpening their physical, mental and developmental abilities. Among those whose disabilities greatly limit their mobility and/or cognition, certain videogames such as MMORPG's (massively multiplayer online role playing games) enable them to pursue a lifestyle that helps keep them connected to the world at large and provide some measure of independence. However, the video game industry, as a whole, does not generally develop games with the disabled customer in mind. In my opinion, they are missing out on a great way to improve their games' brand equity.Last month, during the 2009 Spike TV Video Game Awards, Stevie Wonder presented the Best Music Game award to “The Beatles: Rock Band.” Then he said, “Throughout the world, an estimated 650 million people, or 10% of the population, have a disability. As one of the 10%, I want to see the companies that make these video games, make them accessible, so people like me can enjoy them too.” This met with cheers from the crowd.Why is this an important issue for the disabled gaming community? The reasons are many:
1. Blind people cannot easily see the graphics in video games. Increasingly, video games are dominated by complex and detailed graphics. Alternate color schemes and descriptive audio can be developed by designers to enable blind people to participate in these games.2. Deaf people cannot understand the audibly spoken words. With more and more games utilizing audio cues and spoken words, there is a need for continued support of captioning to supplement these spoken words.3. Individuals with limited use of their hands cannot play regular joysticks or consoles, and must instead use special equipment to enable them to play the game.4. Even many MMORPG games are out of reach for some disabled people who cannot type, or who type slowly. Since communication is an essential part of effective MMORPG play, these gamers either have to play without communication, or would rather not communicate because of the fear that slow typing would put off the other players in the game.
These are only the tip of the iceberg. Many other examples abound of video games that are inaccessible to elements of the disabled population. Even if people with disabilities are able to play and enjoy many different videogames, the game experience is incomplete if some gameplay elements are not accessible.According to Information Solutions Group, more than 20% of casual videogame players have a physical, mental or developmental disability, a percentage that is higher than the percentage of the general population that identifies itself as disabled (between 10% and 15%). And these gamers play more frequently, for more hours a week, and for longer times per gaming session. A surprising statistic: of those gamers who are disabled, almost 70% are female – which literally flips the gender gap on an activity that is invariably considered to be male-oriented. Another interesting statistic shows that those with mental or physical disabilities viewed video gaming as a way to relieve stress, while those with developmental or learning disabilities found that video gaming led to improved concentration and coordination/manual dexterity.Many video game developers do not always take disabled gamers into account when designing their games, because subconsciously the diversity of disabilities is mind-boggling – the perfect heterogeneous sample that, in their minds, would render efficient implementation of accessible features impossible without a commitment of significant resources. In ROI-speak, this would not be an "effective" use of these resources. Another reason that is brought up is that the population of disabled gamers is not big enough to justify the investment.
The reality is, many of the video game barriers can be overcome easily with a good bit of game design and a demonstrated commitment by developers and programmers to address these issues in close communication with designers and proponents of video game accessibility. For example, EA Sports now releases a version of its Madden football series, called “My Football Game,” which is designed for the special needs gamer. It looks and feels like a Madden game, but with customizable playing speeds, and a “Step Up” feature that enables the gamer to practice football skills before going into game mode. It was developed in close consultation with VTree, a leader in the special needs software industry. Another game, World of Warcraft, uses Color Blind 4.0 to help color-blind gamers distinguish the shades of color that is essential to good gameplay. (Disclosure: I have no association with these video game developers, and have never played these games. I am a strategy and simulation guy, with a weakness for the Civilization series.)There is even a group dedicated to accessible gaming for the disabled, called the AbleGamers Foundation, which runs AbleGamers.com. Among other things, AbleGamers.com writes reviews of video games that incorporate accessibility rankings for visual, hearing, and mobility disabilities.
When I came across some discussion threads in various game forums about making videogames accessible to people with disabilities, I found some ignorance on the value that disabled gamers bring to the videogame industry – to wit, that the disabled population isn’t big enough for video game designers to engineer games with them in mind. Maybe, but when the worldwide video gamer market is pegged at 300 to 400 million users, those with disabilities would range between 60 and 80 million based on the Information Solutions Group survey. Keeping in mind that disabled gamers constitute a larger proportion of the video game market compared to the general population, there is certainly benefit in devoting some resources to ensuring that the games are accessible to the 20% of its own market that plays videogames longer, more deeply, and more often than the typical video gamer.Even if a significant slice of the disabled gamer market does not have a need for any accessible features, and even if the disabled population is not homogeneous enough to justify an efficient implementation of accessible features, making a concerted effort to align a video game with the capabilities of a disabled gamer would go a long way toward building respect and brand equity for the game itself.Closed captioning on TV is a great analogy. It was developed in the early 1980’s for the deaf and hard-of-hearing market, which comprises approximately 8%-10% of the U.S. population, and of which a small slice of it has a major need for captioning. A major effort was made at the national level to implement and ultimately expand captioning to the major broadcast networks, and then onto cable and movies. Starting in the mid-1990’s, a federal law required all new TV’s to be equipped with a closed captioning chip. Now, closed captioning is a regular feature of the TV landscape, with unexpected applications beyond the deaf and hard-of-hearing market. Sports bars and restaurants love it because it enables patrons to follow games and CNBC over ambient noise. Non-English-speaking immigrants to the United States, as well as people who cannot read, have used closed captioning as excellent practice for learning English, by connecting the written word (the captions) with the spoken word (what is being said on the screen) – dramatically increasing literacy rates.When a gamer – disabled or not – sees the availability of accessibility features on a game he plays, he/she may or may not use it depending on his preferences. But, invariably, the gamer will recall that the designers of that game took the effort to include these features. This will increase the positive perception of the brand of the game itself.
Your 50-Cent Contribution: Part Deux
(Note: This is a followup to my December 3rd post on the Video Relay Services arrests. Click here for the original article.)This Thursday, in the aftermath of the November 19 arrests of 26 people in the Video Relay Services (VRS) industry for allegedly defrauding the U.S. Government of up to $50 million in Federal Communications Commission (FCC) funds, the FCC will hold a three-hour “Workshop on VRS Reform,” a panel discussion to evaluate the effectiveness of the VRS program. The panelists invited to participate in this workshop represent a cross-section of the telecommunications and disability worlds, including an expert on accessible and inclusive technology, professors of communications at two universities, and representatives of several agencies representing the deaf, including Telecommunications for the Deaf Inc. (TDI) and the National Association for the Deaf (NAD).In its initial announcement of the workshop, the FCC touched on three key areas: how effectively VRS can be delivered, how the VRS companies would be fairly compensated, and how VRS fraud can be dealt with. In this announcement are perhaps the two words that will deliver a major impact on the future of VRS: “competitive bidding.”As the arrangement is currently set up, VRS companies must meet certain criteria set by the FCC to be eligible for the funds distributed by the National Exchange Carriers Association (NECA), which currently sets the rate at $6.50 per minute, or $390 per hour. Since Barack Obama became President in January, there has been a significant delay in the issuance of certificates to new VRS companies that submitted applications for such certification. (The number of VRS companies has increased in the past several years, from a starting base of three to approximately 12 now, give or take a few.) A source I know mentioned that the delay was in part because of the slow pace of staffing government positions with new Obama Administration appointees, but also because the new administration may have believed that the FCC under the Bush Administration was too laissez-faire in its approach to certifying VRS companies for fund eligibility. Since Obama was elected President, he has strongly emphasized accountability and transparency in government. The FBI investigation into the VRS fraud, which started this past spring, likely gave the FCC the explicit rationale to hold off on granting new certificates.Now, with the recent arrests in November, the FCC may have the political cover it needs to change the way the NECA funds are administered and distributed. Until the workshop announcement came out two weeks ago, the thought of "competitive bidding" for NECA funds never crossed my mind. The prospect of limiting the number of companies in the VRS industry to a finite number presents both opportunity and danger. Is this in the best interests of the deaf and hard-of-hearing community?Telephone and cellphone consumers are financing the VRS program to the tune of a couple quarters a month per consumer, and deaf and hard-of-hearing people – like me -- are able to make make VRS calls for free. Of course, we need a broadband Internet connection and a phone line for which we pay for, to make the VRS service work. I admit to being a bit surprised by the fact that I could make international calls to Canada and Italy on your dime.The philosophy of making phone calls for free on someone else’s money does seem, on first thought, objectionable. But to me it makes sense. If deaf people want to use the VRS service effectively, they need a computer, and a DSL or cable connection, for which they must pay for. For hearing people, all they need is a phone – they do not need other devices. So, it makes sense that deaf people should be “reimbursed” for their use of their own computer and broadband Internet, through the use of free calls. Back in the days when deaf people used TTY’s, it took them up to 10 times as long as hearing people to conduct phone calls, because the transmission speed of TTY’s was extremely slow, and the words-per-minute rate of a typed communication was slower than the spoken equivalent. In other words, deaf people had to pay up to 10 times more than hearing people, especially for long-distance calls. Phone companies eventually provided discounted per-minute rates to deaf telephone customers, as long as the customers provided evidence of their hearing loss.But making free calls to Italy? It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, I would think that there has to be a fairness standard with respect to the cost of an international call. Full disclosure: I was happily able to call some hotels in Spain to make reservations, and my wife made arrangements to rent a car in Northern Ireland the same way.The NECA rate of $6.50 per minute is set to compensate VRS companies for the cost of operating the VRS services. I do not have an in-depth look into the typical financials of a VRS company, but I believe the rate also takes into account the cost that the deaf consumer would otherwise pay for a phone call. With VRS usage exploding over the past several years, stretching the NECA funds to their limits, there will certainly be a re-examination of the NECA rate level. The increased VRS usage also necessitates a need for more consistent monitoring by the FCC of VRS companies’ operations, especially on the issue of the amount of call minutes the companies submit to the NECA for reimbursement. As implied in its announcement, the FCC is concerned that too many VRS companies are being certified, stretching the ability of the agency to monitor these companies to ensure their reimbursement requests are legal. Hence, the prospect of competitive bidding.But in its haste for better monitoring and accountability, is the FCC going to put a muzzle on competition and innovation within the VRS industry? Over the last three years, VRS companies have reinvested the revenue collected from the NECA into new features, devices and service improvements intended to improve the customer experience and ensure better operation of the service. Several new companies have started up over the last 2-3 years with more innovative business models, increasing the competitive bar and putting pressure on more established companies like Sorenson and Purple to provide better service.If the FCC moves to competitive bidding, putting a limit on the number of VRS companies eligible for NECA funds, some of the new startups will go out of business. Those that are eligible for funds – and I believe this might be limited to perhaps four – will experience decreased competition. Granted, they will compete with each other, they will be better monitored by the FCC to ensure their practices are legal, and they still need to provide a solid customer experience. But the level of innovation will not be the same.It is a catch-22. On the one hand, the new features that have emerged in the VRS market over the last several years, such as the VPAD and the Ojo, have been a boon for deaf consumers, improving their calling experience, and putting them on a much better par with their hearing counterparts on the ability to use the telephone. But the increasing number of companies licensed to receive funds, and the lack of transparency and accountability, may have opened the door to misuse of funds that were intended to benefit the deaf and hard-of-hearing community. The irony is that, if the charges handed down by the FBI are proven in Federal court, then some deaf people stole money intended to benefit them. A person commented on the Alldeaf.com forum: “Taking advantage of the government is one thing using people who are disabled to do it rather pisses me off.”Yet if the FCC limits the number of companies eligible for these funds in the interest of better monitoring, then the VRS calling experience is in danger of being degraded. It is one thing to be accountable to the U.S. government when submitting the bill of reimbursable minutes, but it is another thing to ensure that the sign language interpreters are highly qualified, and that the technical operations run flawlessly. There are no policy guidelines at the moment on what constitutes a qualified sign language interpreter for a VRS service, or a certain technical floor above which the VRS platform must run effectively.If the FCC plans to introduce competitive bids – thus shrinking the number of companies in the VRS market – then it must also implement policies to improve the quality of the experience, and set standards intended to preserve competition within the industry. If these guidelines are implemented, it provides the companies with an incentive to compete with each other for the best experience. The FCC must also be strict in the application of the certifications granted to the VRS companies: if a VRS company falls below a certain quality or profitability standard, then it should not be eligible for the next round of funds.In business, there has to be a good deal of fear. Fear that your business will go bankrupt, because another company could have a better product than yours, or provide better pricing or customer service. If the FCC takes some of these competitors out of the equation, the fear will not be there, and thus there will be less incentive to improve your product or service.I am going to watch tomorrow's hearing with a good deal of interest.
Running on Artificial Legs in Cambodia
When I came across this Tuesday's New York Times article about an annual 10k race in Cambodia for athletes with artificial legs, as part of the Angkor Wat International Half-Marathon, I was intrigued, because I visited this country two years ago. In the summer of 2007, my then-girlfriend (now wife) and I traveled through Laos and Cambodia and had an amazing time in these Southeast Asian countries. When we arrived in Siem Reap, Cambodia after several days in Laos, we walked its streets, checking out the local crowds and wondering what it was like for them to grow up in a country that is slowly recovering from the horrors of the Khmer Rouge. What immediately struck me was the realization that most of the people on the streets appeared to be under 30 years old, with little or no memory of the ravages of forced work labor under Pol Pot and the famine that followed under Vietnamese occupation. And that, among those aged over 30, a few of them were missing limbs and/or otherwise disfigured – presumably from the wars and famines of the 1970’s.
Admittedly our visit was mostly sanitized – we visited Angkor Wat and the many historic ruins surrounding Siem Reap, stayed in the Foreign Correspondents Club in both Siem Reap and Phnom Penh, and toured the sights in Phnom Penh including the Royal Palace, the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and the haunting Choeung Ek fields, whose green meadows barely cover the scars of mass graves of thousands of people killed by Khmer Rouge soldiers.Yet during this visit I was able to get a sense of the real Cambodia beyond the tourist attractions -- whole families on motorbikes riding through streets, locals in a poor neighborhood besieging my driver as he stepped out to buy water, and the occasional if not unusual sight of someone without an arm or a leg. That Cambodia and, in particular, Siem Reap could include 3,500 people with artificial legs from around the world (including 1,700 Cambodians) in the various Angkor Wat half-marathon events, is a commentary on the country’s determination in dealing with its past. And just as importantly, if not more so, there are evidently people in Cambodia who make a genuine effort to increase the level of acceptance of people with disabilities within society, in a country with an unusually high concentration of people with disabilities within its general population primarily due to war, famine, and more recently, land mine accidents. (The proceeds from the half-marathon events go toward purchasing artificial limbs for land mine victims, among other efforts.)While in college at Brown University, I met a fellow student, Arn Chorn-Pond (click here for Chorn-Pond's bio) in a class we both attended. When Chorn-Pond was a child growing up in Cambodia, he survived the Khmer Rouge's killing fields by playing the flute to keep Pol Pot’s soldiers entertained. At Brown, he noticed that I was using a sign language interpreter to understand the professor in our class. He walked up to me, introduced himself, and commented on his amazement that I was able to rely on this type of support to get me through college. He said in Cambodia there are many people who are deaf who do not have the same kind of opportunities I have, and there are so many people who became blinded from Khmer Rouge's genocidal practices, war injuries and the land mines that dot the Cambodian landscape. He said there was little support in Cambodia for people with disabilities. That was in the late 1980’s.
I was constantly reminded of his words when we traveled through Cambodia. When we visited the Bakong ruins outside Siem Reap, we came upon a group of blind musicians soliciting money. There was a sign near them indicating they were victims of land mines, and also a cup for coins. I cannot vouch for the authenticity of this group, as we have come across many beggars who may be controlled by people behind the scenes who get a cut of the donations. Yet, the reality is, they're blind, they were children during the Khmer Rouge regime and the war with Vietnam, and one cannot imagine what they experienced then.Cambodia is increasingly becoming modernized -- its first skyscraper is going up in Phnom Penh, and, prior to the 2009 global financial crisis, its economy expanded very rapidly. It is not without its many issues, as corruption is rife within its political system, and the child sex trade has been a serious, ongoing problem. Its population is booming -- over 75% of Cambodians are under age 30 and memories of the Khmer Rouge are fading. With all that is going on today, the legacy of Pol Pot is in danger of being cast aside. Yet, after what Arn Chorn-Pond told me two decades ago about the difficult experiences of people with disabilities in his homeland, the annual Angkor Wat half-marathon event is progress enough, a well-deserved recognition of the perseverance of disabled Cambodians in bettering themselves and maintaining their pride and dignity.
Your 50-Cent Contribution: Followup
The FCC has announced a workshop to review the VRS program in light of the November 19 arrests: Link to FCC Press ReleaseI will comment on this when I have a chance. It's actually the first time I'm posting to my blog from my iPhone - so, obviously, I'm both pressed for time and marveling at this technological capability at the same time...
Your 50-Cent Contribution
Bridging the communication gap with the hearing world has always been at the forefront of deaf and hard-of-hearing people’s efforts to utilize technologies to communicate with hearing people. Thus, it is so appropriate that, in the context of recent news, my first real post on my new blog would be about Video Relay Services (VRS), a type of videocommunications technology that has made a major difference in my life and career by enabling me to use the telephone almost like a hearing person. Just before Thanksgiving, 26 people in the VRS industry, several of whom I know, were arrested by the FBI on charges of defrauding the U.S. Government of $50 million through false claims of reimbursement for VRS operations. The impact of this news may put VRS under greater scrutiny, as the funds that make VRS a reality are mostly subsidized by you and me to the tune of approximately $0.50 per telephone bill -- money that may have gone directly into the hands of alleged criminals.Since Alexander Graham Bell invented it in 1876, the telephone has been a blessing and curse for deaf and hard-of-hearing people. Bell, long active in education for the deaf, developed the telephone by accident, as part of an effort to enable deaf people to hear sounds better. Paradoxically, the adoption of the telephone across the world resulted in an increased sense of isolation among deaf people, as those with hearing increasingly relied on telephones as a primary means of communication for both business and entertainment to the point where the phone became a basic part of people’s lives.Today, many deaf people view the telephone as an obstacle to their ability to communicate with hearing people in the world at large. They have embraced new technologies that were created to get around the telephone, such as TTY’s, amplifiers, and e-mail. Video relay services, popularly known as VRS, are the latest technological achievement, taking advantage of the power of broadband Internet. Through videocommunications technology that is streamed over the Internet, VRS enables deaf and hard-of-hearing callers to communicate over the telephone with voice telephone users. Sign language interpreters appear on a computer screen, translating every word the hearing caller is saying to the deaf person.VRS has significantly changed the way I work, for the better. As someone who has established a career in the highly communicative world of finance and business strategy where the typical job description requires excellent oral and phone communication skills, not being able to use the telephone and follow meetings have been major challenges that call for creativity and ingenuity. Until I started using VRS extensively in 2004, I utilized various arrangements that enabled me to follow meeting conversations and use the phone for limited calls. They were not the best solutions, they were clumsy and awkward (and in the business world, off-putting), but they were the best available out there. Now, I can carry on conversations outside the confines of my office (where before I relied on e-mail communication which was far less personable), listen in on conference calls, and even make a training presentation by phone to 80 people around the world which is what I did at American Express. I am not a skilled phone communicator, yet -- a lifetime of not using the phone will do that to you -- but I am learning on the job and it has been eye-opening.VRS became a commercial reality in 2002, with the mass adoption of broadband Internet and the establishment by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) of a fund administered by the National Exchange Carrier Association (NECA). NECA collects revenue from a specific tax on U.S. telecommunications companies and redistributes it to corporations that provide and operate VRS services based on the amount of call minutes used. In many cases, the telecommunications companies pass the tax on to consumers, disclosed on telephone bills as a "surcharge for funds for deaf & hard of hearing services." (Hence the $0.50 on your bill.) VRS companies in the United States who are eligible to receive these funds include Sorenson VRS, Purple Communications, and ZVRS.VRS has its roots in text-relay services (TRS), which were first employed on TTY’s in the mid-1980’s and migrated to the Internet in the late 1990’s with the adoption of Internet Protocol Relay (IP Relay). TRS and IP Relay services utilized typists who transcribed the hearing caller’s words on the screen letter-for-letter for the deaf caller to read via TTY (phone line) or computer (via Internet). Like VRS companies, TRS companies were funded by revenue from NECA.When TRS was implemented, NECA set a rate of approximately $1.50 per minute to reimburse operators for their TRS services to deaf and hard-of-hearing callers. When VRS went interstate in 2002, the FCC approved NECA reimbursements for this new market and set a higher rate of between $6.50 and $7.00 a minute due to the substantial operating costs of administering video-based call centers. These amounts, which work out to $390-$420 an hour, are set on an annual basis by NECA, based on an understanding of the costs of running the relay services, with the intent of giving companies participating in the program a level of profit that would be reinvested in the business to ensure continued operation of the relay services.Demand for VRS among deaf/HH callers boomed soon after implementation of the NECA program. As demand continues to increase, many startups have jumped into the fray, most of them without certification by the FCC, but with the expectation of being certified in the future so they would start receiving revenue from NECA.With no previous precedent for monitoring video-based relay calls to ensure that the reimbursable minutes submitted to NECA are legitimate, the VRS industry is very much like the Wild West, with minimal policing by the FCC and the potential for fraudsters to take advantage of the attractive $400-per-hour rate. Now that the VRS fraud case is national news, some deaf people are justifiably worried that the FCC will reconsider the NECA reimbursement program and implement restrictions which could put many VRS companies out of business. Some people who otherwise have not heard of VRS might conclude that this is not a good use of the taxes levied on telecommunications companies and call for this program to be discontinued, especially as the U.S. works its way out of a nasty recession and is dealing with major government deficits.This is no help to the deaf and hard-of-hearing people who rely on the VRS system to communicate with the hearing world. What is sorely needed in this industry is accountability, of which little existed until the FBI got involved. As the VRS fraud indictments resolve themselves through the legal system, the good news coming out of all this is that, based on what I have heard from those in the know, VRS companies are implementing stricter policies governing the submission of reimbursable minutes to the U.S. Government, and paying stronger attention to other VRS issues such as the quality and training of the sign language interpreters themselves.If there is no effort to improve accountability in the VRS industry, it's not just you who will get cheated out of your telephone bill money even if it is just 50 cents. Deaf and hard-of-hearing people would get cheated out of the right to equal access by telephone that hearing people take for granted. That, at least to me, is worth more than 50 cents.