Technology 259
Why Do Deaf Schools Cost So Much?
Discussions about specialist schools for deaf students, routinely highlight that educational outcomes for the students tend to be well below national averages – despite large sums of money being invested into the schools, into digital tools and into teaching resources. Cost Analyses Can Be Illuminatory Reading the critique, Why Are Expenses So High At School For The Deaf?, by Dr Nick Fina,
Pebble Watches Doubling As An Access Tool
Kristen Regelein, head of global sales at smartwatch maker Pebble – who went deaf at age three – uses a Pebble watch in business meetings to alter the volume on her hearing-aids. “My personal and professional life depends heavily on my listening and communication out to the world. When your job is to negotiate deals, it could
Public Service Innovation Using Design (Conference)
SPIDER, a European project about service design, held its final conference, “Innovating Public Services In Challenging Times” at Dublin Castle, on June 9th and 10th, 2015. Key Learning Points Public services in Europe need reform to address the recurring, ‘wicked’ social issues. Four co-creation models were presented by Birgit Mager for innovating public services. The historic social power slope has
Uber Optimises Its Apps For Drivers With Hearing Issues
Uber, whose service links drivers and riders, recently upgraded its transit apps for easier access by drivers who are deaf or hard of hearing, after focus groups to explore the issues. Drivers in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington DC have a visual alert plus an audible warning to new rider requests, which increases their trade. Riders connecting with a
CinemaConnect and MobileConnect Clarify Sounds
Two new apps, CinemaConnect and MobileConnect, are devised for cinema and theatre fans to optimise incidental show dialogue for their hearing needs simply by calibrating the sound levels on their smart phones – even when hearing devices are not worn. A streaming audio signal transmitted from the movie screen or stage is detected by a user’s phone, with sound relayed
IBM Employee Requests Captions On Intranet Videos
Dialogue on audio and video files needs to be accurately machine-translated into captions, with the legal case, Noll versus IBM, recently reported in The New York Law Journal. Software engineer, Alfred Noll, employed at IBM since 1984, had used a mix of real time captioning and transcribing, plus interpreters as accommodations – but reported difficulty in accessing the corporate
Fujitsu Builds A LiveTalk Transcribing Tool
Starting this month, Fujitsu and Fujitsu Social Science Laboratory, are offering “LiveTalk“, a new speech-to-text transcribing tool, to businesses, colleges and schools in Japan. Knowing that meeting and educational settings can challenge people with hearing issues, Fujitsu is seeking to visualise everyday speech as text to make interactions more natural. LiveTalk’s Universal Design Everyone can use LiveTalk regardless of hearing ability,
Dr Carol Flexer: We Hear With Our Brains
Mention the name Dr Carol Flexer, and most audiologists and speech therapists worldwide will nod in recognition. Dr Flexer, an expert in childrens’ auditory brain development, hosted a sparkling session in Dublin on May 7 for professionals ranging from those mentioned, to social workers, educators, researchers and cochlear implant support teams. Dr Flexer’s last visit to Dublin coincided
Parent-Child Conversational Turns Build Intelligence
Twenty years ago, the thirty million word gap emerged in the US as an education issue for children starting kindergarten with language disadvantage. New research however shows the word gap is not the number of words children hear, as first thought. Read: Key To Vocabulary Gap Is Quality Of Conversations Conversational turns between a parent and child emerged as the key to
eBook: Teaching A Deaf Child To Hear And Speak
Edited by Caroline Carswell