I think Ocean sums it up nicely in her comments as well. We need to change attitudes. We need to educate people as to what Equal Communication Access is, and why it is important, in order to gain the support we need to make Equal Communication Access happen.

It is possible through awareness and education. And cooperation – we need to work together!

I have an update related to my post above. Returning from walking my dog yesterday evening, a group of my Brazilian neighbors were sitting out at the picnic table in the back yard while grilling up some dinner. I stopped to chat with them. While there, one of the other neighbors came home from work and joined the group. He immediately started telling a story in their native language of Portuguese. They all started laughing. But before I even had the chance to roll my eyes thinking about the party earlier this summer, this man turned to me and re-told the story in English. It was indeed funny, and I was able to laugh along with my neighbors.

Since the party that I told you all about above, I have spent a lot of time chatting with my neighbors…mostly Silvio and his wife with whom I have been helping with their English studies. (In turn they are teaching me a little Portuguese.) We talk about the differences in our cultures, answer questions for each other, and have learned a lot from each other.

My Deaf friends have done the same with me, spending time with me to further educate me about the Deaf community and Deaf culture and assist me with my ASL studies.

When we all work together – education, awareness, and effective communication is the result!

Please join us in supporting Equal Communication Access for all!

I’m not sure about any type of device that can actually turn spoken words into written text – I believe that I saw this same television program, and it is not that the device changes spoken word to text…it is basically a text telephone much like a pager that allows one to type something that appears on a screen for another person to read.

As an example, I have a pager device myself. If Crystal wants to send me a message, she can do so…but she still has to type it to me thru her computer or her own text messaging program on her telephone – my pager cannot turn spoken word into written text.

I know they are working on such technology and there are some programs that can do this, but I believe they are still fairly expensive and they are computer software programs, not intended for use on a handheld device.

Modern technology is getting more and more sophisticated, but I think we still have a ways to go.

The bigger problem is not whether or not we have the technology….it’s educating people to understand what deafness is all about, and what Equal Communication Access is all about, and why it is so important.

For example, currently most video news on the internet are NOT captioned. The technology for doing so IS available…it is just that the news corporations (such as CNN, MSNBC, etc.) don’t want to be bothered with doing it.

Many doctors, lawyers, businesses, etc…even government agencies don’t want to be bothered with having to provide sign language interpreters…mainly because they don’t want to have to pay for it. They complain that it costs too much. So what does that mean for me?

Movie theaters don’t want to provide captioned films, because they say “it is too distracting for their hearing audiences, who complain because they don’t want to have to see those words on the movie screen.” So I have to go without access just because a bunch of hearing movie-goers bitched about having to see captions/subtitles?

Until we can change attitudes, all the technology in the world isn’t going to do much good.

That’s what the Equal Communication Access campaign is all about – educating people and hopefully through such education being able to change attitudes and gain support for the whole concept of access for all.

(And if you haven’t submitted an entry for the contest, why not consider doing so today???)

As for relating that instance to Equal Communication Access, it totally made sense to me. Good post! For me, having Virginia as a friend has helped open my eyes to a world which I rarely thought about. This is something that needs to be addressed, and this country is falling behind in helping its’ own citizens.