With today’s teens doing Transition Year work experience and internships to gain workplace skills, businesses need specific advice on hearing awareness. Multinationals, small businesses, retailers and corner shops can all make their service hearing-friendly to broaden their current customer bases and reduce unintentional discrimination during their daily operations. Some everyday tips from deaf people: For
For deaf students, employees and innovators in large gatherings or training environments, captioning is a lifeline. That’s the only way to put it. This point was clear to me after a recent conference at which eight hours of lipreading was required, because the organisers did not have a budget for captioning. On the bus home,
For the parents of deaf children campaigning for teaching supports at mainstream schools of their choice, here is an outline of two key education acts as a reference. Ten Pieces Of Legislation (Ireland) Ten pieces of legislation cover education supports and hearing services in Ireland. The two acts outlined below are completely separate from each
For Digital Schools Week, Sound Advice is collating its favourite digital and e-learning pieces into one post. Education practices are rapidly transforming with digital tools, as Silicon Republic reports in its web-feature, and teachers need to use professional development opportunities to upskill for the digital age. Early Language Learning Deaf children don’t automatically hear words
New educational technologies give teachers an immediate advantage in making their lessons relevant and interesting to students of all ages. With interactive white boards, DVDs, laptops and smart devices, classrooms become exciting places to learn instead of simply reading from a book. Teachers can boost their students’ literacy by using captioned material when teaching, regardless
For the first time deaf kids in Australia can gain equal access in classrooms, with a pilot schools-captioning idea from access solutions firm, Ai Media. Ai Media, formed in 2003, dedicates itself to providing generic captioning services. In Australia about 85% of deaf children attend mainstream schools and last year AI Media began captioning in
The first-ever iPhone subtitle application promises to give movie buffs the chance to receive subtitles directly to their phone for the movie/DVD of their choice. It’s a great solution until more cinemas provide subtitled movies and as the app develops, cinemas may use it as a low-budget captioning option. This application is currently available for
Australia has introduced its first mainstream “Model Classroom” for deaf students at LaSalle Catholic College in Bankstown. Classrooms are planned to maximise learning in mainstream schools with interactive whiteboards, captioned resources, visual computer content and sound-field systems. The pilot project was designed by Media Access Australia in collaboration with the Catholic Education Office and LaSalle
Young deaf students attending Lawrence Elementary School in the US have seen the literacy and numeracy benefits of a new software initiative. FM Systems Remove Ambient Noise In the classroom, audio output from the computer is sent via radio waves, directly to receivers the students wear on their hearing aids and/or cochlear implants. Ambient noise
Deafness had a key role in the invention of the phone, the internet and SMS texting. Miriam Walsh explains the link to each technology. Would you consider deafness to have influenced the telephone, Internet and SMS texting as everyday communication tools? Most people would not – but deafness is the universal link. The Phone Let’s