CCAC ACTION: EDUCATION

CCAC Action for Education:

Person with hearing loss not able to follow in class, questions and answers, voices; what to do. School seems slow to offer resources that work.

CCAC Action Team replied immediately, resulting in good information, letter to local experts (advocate, CART provider, state office), and now hoping to hear next steps for inclusion — equal communication access for all. No one to be excluded.

Good to educate and advocate! CCAC network for advocacy is open.
Self-advocacy not easy to do alone.

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Words – CART, Translators or Interpreters

CART stands for “Communication Access Real Time Translation,” a mouthful. It is, simply said, real-time captioning.

And indeed – it may be closer to, or just as close to, “interpretation” rather than “translation.”

CCAC wonders if there would be a lot less confusion about CART and captioning for millions who need it, if it were called interpretation (rather than translation).

Here’s the rationale:
Translation is about creating text from one language to another (written language).
Interpretation is about creating text from spoken language.

CART creates text (language) from spoken language, so it could just as easily be termed interpretation.

And sign language “interpreters” are actually “translators” because they are translating from one language (e.g. English) to another (ASL).

If you have time to think about this, you’ll see that both interpretation and translation fit both services – real time captioning, and also real time signing.

CCAC wonders if one word, INTERPRETATION would be best for both services from here forward.

Go figure, words! 🙂

CART for Employment – worth every cent for your business and more

Expand your own business – with able employees, wider business to business networking, and wider markets too – include CART – real time captions for all.
Here’s a pretty good guideline –
http://www.ada.gov/business/accessiblemtg.htm

Conferences need CART – Communications Conference without CART

ALL Communications Conferences must include CART. What gives? We are told that a big one in D.C. is not using CART. In any large audience, there’ll be many who need and use it!

NATOA’s 2010 Annual Conference — Gigabit Communities
September 29 – October 1, 2010
Washington Court Hotel, Washington, DC
NATOA is pleased to announce a special keynote luncheon Our
Communications Future: The View from the White House taking place during the upcoming
Annual Conference on Friday, October 1st from 12:30 – 2:00 p.m.
The keynote will feature Philip J. Weiser, White House Senior Advisor for
Technology and Innovation to the National Economic Council Director and
will be followed by audience Q&A.

CART (real time captioning for inclusion and participation by all) is a universally good idea.

Thanks to the CCAC….

From a CCAC Member today:
Dear all,
As some of you are aware, a few months ago I …requested CART services for a panel in Berlin at the Languages & Media Conference for October. http://www.languages-media.com/

As a speaker related to Reception Accessibility, I was very concerned about my full participation with the audience and with the rest of the panelists.

CCAC wrote to organizers supporting my request and offering help to locate English speaking professionals for such event in Germany. Those names turned out not to be available for such dates. However, the search remained by ICWE, the people organizing this world wide Conference.

I have just been informed that a company named Red Bee Media will be sponsoring the service. Two professionals will provide the service remotely from London, and we will have some testing – or dry runs done a day in advance.
I do not have their names yet.

Thanks for your support CCAC! Yes we can…
==
CCAC response: thanks, and yes you can too! Say hi to “Red Bee Media” for us and invite them to join the CCAC here also :-).

ADA Tax Credit and Deduction for Small Businesses providing CART

If you need CART and you either work for or employ the services of a business whose revenues are less than a million dollars per year or has fewer than 31 employees, you should let them know about the ADA Tax Credit.

From ADA.gov:

The tax credit is available to businesses that have total revenues of $1,000,000 or less in the previous tax year or 30 or fewer full-time employees. This credit can cover 50% of the eligible access expenditures in a year up to $10,250 (maximum credit of $5000). The tax credit can be used to offset the cost of undertaking barrier removal and alterations to improve accessibility; providing accessible formats such as Braille, large print and audio tape; making available a sign language interpreter or a reader for customers or employees, and for purchasing certain adaptive equipment.

There’s also a deduction available:

The tax deduction is available to all businesses with a maximum deduction of $15,000 per year. The tax deduction can be claimed for expenses incurred in barrier removal and alterations.

The code mentions sign language interpreters and not CART, but it’s been established that the tax credit/deduction can be used for both. The next time a company says, “We’d love to, but we can’t afford it,” make sure they know about this policy.

CART stands for….

C(ommunication) A(ccess) R(real time) T(ranslation). A mouthful, right? 🙂
In other countries it’s called by other names:
STTR – speech to text real time
Palantype
Velotype

CART is a specialized fully verbatim display and record, in text, of all voices in any setting, when there is a qualified CART “writer” or “provider” or CART “professional” with all on site, or listening and providing text remotely (this is easy to do now, using modern technology, e.g. good audio systems (mics or computers too) and the Internet to stream or display the text real time.

Do you know of other names in other countries? Tell us.
In sum, and for all, it’s
REAL TIME SPEECH TO TEXT – OUR RAMP FOR FULL INCLUSION.

There are also automatic and automated speech recognition systems, yet none match the accuracy and standards of a human CART specialist.

ls/ccac

CART – More good reasons and statistics

From another CCAC Member in our working community:

• There are 54 million of people with disabilities in the USA and 37 million of them have hearing loss which make more than half (actually almost 3/4) of people with disabilities. Not that other disabilities are not important, but it is worth to mention this, especially that hearing loss is an “invisible” disability and still have a stigma.

• People with disabilities represent a … TRILLION dollar market in the USA! According to the following source, read more info at the book via Google Books: “The inclusive corporation: a disability handbook for business professionals” by Griff Hogan

That source also mentions hearing “impairment” on the top list of disabilities (if you scroll down a few more pages)

If we think about hearing loss being the largest disability group, it would represent more than half trillion dollars!

• According to the HLAA, “hearing loss making it a public health issue third in line after heart disease and arthritis”,  Read more.

• According to the COAT, “Over 100 million Americans, including 28 million (ccac here: should be updated to 37 million) individuals with hearing loss, 30 million people for whom English is a second language, 27 million illiterate adults, 12 million children learning how to read and 4 million remedial readers.”   Read more.

If over 100 million Americans need captioning, it would make 1/3 (!!!) of the US population (currently it is a bit over 300 million).

That’s something for organizations to think about before complaining about “wasting” money on audio accessibility via text that is UNIVERSAL for everyone.

CART in Court

Getting started on a Blog again is daunting!
Welcome all followers here :-).

Did you know that there has never been a CART request tested in our Courts? (Other than someone who requests CART in the court itself, sometimes granted, sometimes not.)

CCAC is not sure about this, there may he something on record in Florida from years back?

No CART Court Case – no case law. Yet we know that CART is included in our communication access rights, no doubt about it. We can cite the laws….

And we hope everyone is not shy about asking for it, if it’s what you need. If you “hear” a “no” in reply, get in touch – ccacaptioning@gmail.com

Why CART is a good idea!

From a CCAC Member, about requesting CART:

The benefit (of providing CART for anyone requesting it) is often to a larger group than will admit they need CART. Training programs are often plagued by bad audio. No realtime transcriptions. Audience members for whom English isn’t their first language.

…How many people enjoying the captioning on the TVs at the gym or in a crowded bar?

How much does this help non-native English speakers to understand television (television in any language is one of the hardest things for a non-native speaker to understand, the language is spoken much faster, with far more colloquialisms.)

And with a population that is aging — and often unwilling to admit hearing loss — having captioning provided as a matter of course benefits an even greater number than those “1 or 2” that actually step forward to ask for accommodations.

And wheel chair ramps are a great example of unintended benefits — my mother with her bad knees appreciates those curb cuts, me when walking to the grocery store and coming back with my food cart — these all make the city more accessible and easier to navigate and improve walkability far beyond wheelchair users.

(Same true for inclusion of real time captioning.)

Accessibility — wherever it’s implemented — is an improvement that benefits far beyond the original audience.

As a web designer the discussion has been on the accessible web … And how that growth in online accessibility has vastly improved online experiences over the last 10 years: the so-called Web 2.0 is at its core about improved interoperability, improved access. And everyone has benefited.

CART and captioning is no different.