Earlier today I was discussing YouTube adding automated captions with a few people on twitter. I was especially excited for my wife Candice, who is deaf (and so misses out on a lot of content) . Sure, YouTube has had closed captions for a while but only when the video uploader bothers to create them… and most don’t. (one awesome exception is WatchTheGuild which has had captions since they were introduced)
Anyway this led to some discussion about captions in general, accessibility, and general discussion about Deaf and hearing impaired people. For the purposes of this post, the world is split into two cultures – deaf and hearing.
Hearing people have “normal” hearing. They grow up using spoken languages, listening to the radio, etc. Hearing impaired people are hearing people who have lost their hearing. They mostly interact with hearing people and there is lots of speaking loudly and writing things down.
Deaf culture is different. Most members of Deaf culture are either born deaf or lose their hearing to disease when they are babies. They grow up using sign language (Auslan in Australia), watching captioned movies and TV shows. Many come from families where most members are deaf. Deaf culture can also include hearing relatives of Deaf people and interpreters. Some Deaf people always capitalise the D, but most that I know use upper or lower case interchangeably (and so I do that as well).
As a mixed Deaf-Hearing couple, here are some of the challenges we face. Some affect both deaf and hearing impaired people, and some don’t.
- A lot of TV programs are captioned poorly or not at all. The best quality captions are on the ABC and SBS, the worst are the new commercial digital channels. Sometimes they will even list a program as being captioned when it’s not. We deal with this by renting DVDs or just not watching certain programs. Although it’s getting easier to digitally record a show and find a caption file online.
- Online, many videos aren’t captioned (even ABC’s IView service). This started changing earlier in the year when YouTube brought in captioned videos.
- A lot of live shows don’t cater for Deaf or Hearing Impaired people. Generally we don’t go out to shows because of this. We tried it – I spent all my time trying to interpret for Candice, she still didn’t know what was going on because I’m not fast enough. One of the most enjoyable nights out we have had was when we saw comedian Adam Hills‘ show with an Auslan interpreter. We both could understand the show, and enjoyed ourself greatly. There were around 2 dozen Deaf people in the audience that night. I think that proves that accessibility isn’t a waste of time.
- I have to make all the phone calls. This means a lot of “hang on I’ll tell her what you said” and wasted time. With the arrival of a TTY in our house this is changing. Telstra’s Disability Equipment Program really needs more publicity. You can get the form from any Telstra shop.
- When we go out together, a lot of people think Candice has an intellectual disability and that I’m a carer of some sort. This is the thing that annoys me the most. I always take the opportunity to explain that she’s deaf, not stupid, and it’s just a communication problem. Sometimes people get it, sometimes they don’t. All we can do is keep trying.
- Sometimes hearing people can’t be bothered including Candice in conversation. This is because it takes a little more effort – face her (to make lip reading easier) and speak clearly and slightly slower than usual. It works the other way too – when we’re socialising with Deaf people, I miss a lot of what is said because they sign too fast for me. In either situation, both of us appreciate the people who take the time and effort to include us.
But it’s not all challenges, there are good parts too:
- we can talk to each other across crowded rooms, or from a long way away, or when it’s very noisy. All we need is line of sight.
- I get a few deaf customers at work. Being able to “speak their language” means we don’t have to resort to pen and paper. One time this did make a new co-worker I was training freak out a little bit, she thought you have to learn Auslan to work there.
- last but not least: if I don’t want to talk to drunks, street preachers and other weirdos, I can pretend to be deaf.
