Thursday, January 31, 2013

A Technological Wonder

By Rey Vetangelo


Caption calling is a technological wonder that allows those with hearing disabilities to communicate with those without over the phone. Communicating in this way has traditionally been very difficult between these two parties, because of how it limits various cues that the deaf use to bridge the gap.

Most people who have a hearing disability bridge communication gaps by doing lip reading and taking note of body language as people express themselves. When speaking on the phone, these advantages are neutralized.

All they had to do was slouch a bit in their chair, stare at a blank spot on the wall and not respond very much to tell you they were tired. Sometimes actions are misinterpreted, causing offense and unease. You've heard it a hundred times before; your actions speak louder than words. And it's true. A vast majority of what you're saying isn't coming from your mouth. It's coming from the way you hold yourself and move.

When this information is sent, the transcript of the conversation appears on a mounted screen that can easily be read. Since these transcripts appear in real time, the conversation is much smoother and can progress naturally. This technology has existed for a while in some form or another, but has faced crippling limitations that prevented effective communication until now. Two major developments have allowed for these transactions to take place.

This kind of communication has previously not been possible due to technological limitations on these units. Voice recognition has been around in some form or another for years and years. However, voice recognition of the past was severely limited by the ability of the unit to actually comprehend what was spoken into it. Earlier voice recognition models could be thrown off by issues like volume, accent, inflection, and background noise interrupting the process.

In contrast, if you see the person you are talking to turns their head down with glazed eyes, and pick at something on their shirt while slumping in a chair, then you can rightfully suspect that they're not paying attention. They are normally signs of disengagement. As stated earlier, this could also show fatigue. Pay attention to these signs and try to redirect the conversation to meet their needs.

As such, people were required to speak exactingly into their units in a very artificial manner that could be difficult to replicate. While caption calling may seem like a simple enough comfort to us with the wonders we enjoy every day, the fact of the matter is that there is a lot that goes into these units.

Streaming text is essential to bridging the gap which exists between the two parties who are trying to communicate. When it all comes down to it, modern technology has given us a miracle in the making by finally giving answers to decades old problems.

They have created a captioned telephone that helps the hearing impaired to communicate via telephone. The captioned telephone listens to what is said and then delivers a text transcript on a screen for the hearing impaired to read and respond to.




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