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Deafness Led To The Phone, Internet & SMS Texts

Deafness had a key role in the invention of the phone, the internet and SMS texting. As voting for Ireland’s Net Visionary Awards gets under way, Miriam Walsh explains the link to each technology.

Would you consider deafness in any way to have influenced the telephone, Internet and SMS texting as everyday tools for communication? Most people would not - but deafness is the universal link.

Let’s start with the telephone, invented by Alexander Graham Bell in the US in the 1870s. Bell’s mother had progressive deafness and this led him to study acoustics. Bell’s father worked to teach deaf people to speak. In their youth, Bell & his brothers learned to write visible speech (symbols showing lip movements to sounds) and to match symbols to their correlating sound.

As an adult, Bell studied sound and its creation. He used the telegraph as a basis for inventing the telephone. On October 9, 1876 the first phone conversation took place between Bell and Thomas A. Watson. A year later Bell Telephone Company was created and by 1886, over 150,000 people in the US had telephones (remember, the Internet runs over phone lines).

Next, the Internet. Vinton Cerf, Google’s chief evangelist, was central to creating the early Internet. Cerf is hard of hearing and in the 1970s was part of an initial research team into internet protocols under Steve Crocker. Cerf’s hearing issues meant he needed to share documents with associates instead of talking on a phone. The first IP-based network resulted in 1981.

Only since the early 1990s has the Internet been a portal for communication & social networking, with Facebook recently passing Google as a destination.

Finally, SMS texting. Finland’s Matti Makonen is credited with inventing SMS texting. The first SMS was sent in 1992. The idea of SMS was first discussed by Makkonen in a Copenhagen pizzeria with two other Finns, Seppo Tiainen and Juhani Tapiol.  Makkonen invented SMS texting for deaf people to communicate, but when SMS offered an incredible new method for saving telecom bandwidth, the world of cellular telecommunications changed.

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National Audiology Review: Another Mum’s Story

Here’s another mum’s story about being let down by audiology services in Ireland, after her son failed a hearing test at 9 months. Other parents also shared their stories on the irishdeafkids.ie site.

Charlie was 10 months old when the audiologist suggested glue ear was the underlying issue.  I was told to return to the audiologist for another test and on the day of my son’s first birthday I sat with him in that office to be told he was probably deaf.  I didn’t know where this new diagnosis had come from, what new information the audiologist had gleaned from my son by looking at him, but that was the news I got.  And I left the office that day with no information, no help, no support and no clue as to what lay ahead.

We waited for appointments that didn’t arrive and the only thing we knew was that our first son was deaf.  I bought books to try to learn more and went online for help.  We finally found the NAD (DeafHear) and got some much needed support but we still didn’t know what this weird unofficial diagnosis meant for Charlie and hadn’t seen anyone else for more tests.

I had visions of Charlie going away to school, communicating through sign language and feeling alienated from his family.  I was pregnant with my second son, and still didn’t know why Charlie was deaf.  And so, like many other people living in this country, I had to turn to the UK and our private consultants here for help.

When Charlie was around 20 months old we went to an appointment in Tullamore to get his first hearing aids.  We sat in a waiting room with four other families for over three hours.  We went into the room and were handed two hearing-aids, told which was for which ear and that the aids were set (not to be changed) and we were bid good day.

No-one even showed us how to put the hearing aids in. We didn’t know they would beep and buzz if not in correctly.  We knew nothing about ill-fitting ear-moulds or how the aids would fall out of his tiny little ears.  We didn’t know how difficult this baby child would find using them.  No-one explained anything to us and we were struggling as parents to cope with the situation.

A referral for a BSER test at Beaumont Hospital was a different experience.  Finally, people who spoke to us as if we had feelings and intelligence.  Charlie’s hearing loss was diagnosed after several tests in Beaumont.  He was given different hearing aids and we found support and had a new understanding of what this all meant. We heard about cochlear implants and started out on that long road to see if our son was a suitable candidate.

When my second son was born in 2006, there was still no neonatal testing in Portlaoise so we had to ask the team in Beaumont to test him. They did this when he was 5 months old and he is fine.  Our third son was born in 2008. Again, there was no neonatal testing in Portlaoise so we had to endure more months of waiting to have him tested in Beaumont.  He is fine, too.

The fact that new born babies are not routinely checked for hearing loss baffles me.  It would save so much time and heartache for parents and the children with a hearing loss as early intervention is the key.

No parent or child should have to endure a fight for diagnosis.  No parent or child should endure the cruelty and harshness of having ear-moulds made when the professional doing the procedure does so without compassion.

No child with a hearing loss should have their future compromised by losing out on valuable time –  time for speech and language development or learning sign language, time to get used to wearing hearing aids if they work well, time for being assessed for a cochlear implant if this is an option.

The audiological service in this country needs three things:

1. Universal new born hearing screening (UNHS)
2. Early intervention when deafness is confirmed
3. A formal support system for families with deaf children

These three things will make a world of difference to a child and their family.

SBB

Further Reading:

One Parent’s Feedback: National Audiological Review

National Audiology Review Seeks Service Feedback

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Future Arts: FYI 2010 - Accessibility And Advocacy

IDK was recently invited by the Arts Council to attend its Future Arts: FYI 2010 event for youngsters aged 15 to 23, in Dublin (March 27 - 29, 2010).

Our role was to give a ‘deaf’ angle to the young delegates at the weekend’s discussions and workshops. This included basic deaf-awareness, explaining how Speedtext & ISL interpreting support deaf people, and that a deaf person in a group discussion may need to self-advocate to track a topic.

Everyone was really interested and asked questions, like do deaf people hear music, can we dance/act (yes!), and where we hang out. With all this new awareness, we reminded them that their own videos need captions to be accessible. Our line was, “can that video be understood without sound?”

Future Arts: FYI 2010 Broad Outcomes:

On Day 3 (March 29th), arts and government policy-makers (”guests” in our parlance) met with the young delegates for animated discussions.

IDK has put a ‘deaf’ angle on the broad outcomes of these discussions.

Access To The Arts/Actions By Established Groups

• Deaf children of school age should be encouraged in arts activities
• Deaf people need arts information in plain English (online/print)
• Event booking needs to be available online/via email/SMS
• Podcasts should be posted with a transcription by default
• Online videos need to be subtitled by default
• Captioning should be considered for theatre/comedy/other shows
• ISL interpretation will always be supported by the deaf community
• Accessible events need advance publicity for return on investment

Education

• Artistic practices are key in teaching deaf children new concepts
• Creative and academic learning needs blending for students’ benefit
• The arts should be used to develop & maximise students’ potential
• Art in schools must qualify students for college on art ability alone
• Deaf people training as art teachers need encouragement & funding

Policy Makers & Young People: Hearing Both Sides

• Youth advisory committees are needed to ensure policy is inclusive
• Representation is needed from different art forms for true equality
• An online arts directory for the arts should be compiled
• Local arts initiatives require clear co-ordination (funding & staging)

Empty (Studio) Space In Irish Towns/Cities

• Reservation of space needs to be available online/by SMS texting
• Universal design principles should be used in retro-fitted space
• Visible doorbells/fire alarms to alert artists/musicians as relevant
• All arts information needs to be distributed online where possible

All comments/points of discussion are welcomed: just say your bit below!

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Special Stories in The Sunday Business Post

The Sunday Business Post recently interviewed Kate Gaynor from Special Stories and IDK’s Caroline Carswell about their book, “A Birthday For Ben”.

The two-page feature in the SBP’s Agenda Magazine can be read as two colour pages (PDF files): (1) First page (2) Second page or as a webpage.

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Parent Question: Is Home Tuition in Irish Funded?

This question is highlighted after a comment on the IDK website, so other parents can add their points if wished. Students & parents discuss the issue on the IDK forum, in one of the most-read posts.

Hi, my son is 9 years old. He has a severe hearing loss in both ears and attends mainstream school. He did quite well up to this year but at the moment he is having difficulty with Irish. The visiting teacher has suggested he drop Irish as a subject and puts the resource time into his English development. He was using some of his resource hours last year in the classroom for Irish, but the school has withdrawn this support as they feel he needs to focus on his English and maths. I am wondering if it is possible to arrange home tuition for him in Irish at this stage. He is in third class. Thanks, Marie C.

IDK’s response:

Hi Marie C,

Just to follow up on your recent enquiry.

Firstly, most deaf children at mainstream schools get an exemption from Irish by the time they move to secondary level. Unless you’ve a strong reason for his continuing Irish (eg, for primary teaching or other careers), this might be the best option. Your son could then catch up on resource work and homework while his classmates had an Irish class.

This way, he gets a chance to review current work in his stronger subjects and to motivate himself, rather than lose potential homework time in those stronger subjects, to “catching” up in Irish.

It really depends on your reason/s for him to continue with Irish as a school subject, and his own thoughts on this.

The Department of Education incidentally doesn’t fund home tuition in Irish for deaf students. This leaves two options, (1) private home tuition or (2) negotiating resource hours with the school. Of course, if your son has an aptitude for languages, one of these two options might be the best route.

I hope this helps - this thread is being followed by parents & teachers, so feel free to add to it. A discussion on this topic is also on the IDK forum if you’d like to read what other students said in response to a parent’s post.

What do other parents - and students - think?

Caroline

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Arts Council Invites IDK To FutureArts Conference

The Arts Council invited IDK to bring three to five deaf teens/young adults (aged 15 to 23) to a EU-funded 3-day seminar in Dublin, March 27-29, 2010, with communication support. The event, Art-Youth-Culture: FYI, consists of a series of arts-based workshops & discussions, ending with dialogue between young people, arts policy makers & government representatives.

Who will be there? Here’s a list of government departments, agencies and cultural organisations taking part in FutureArts 2010.

Get Stuck In! Social media links are available for you to follow the 3-day event. Live tweets will be sent from twitter.com/futurearts2010 as of today.

IDK Updates: Short event updates will be posted here by the IDK team.
Follow our twitter stream, too!

Questions?? Have a question to put to the workshops/forums at the event?
Post your comments here, and we’ll bring your issue/s to the table.

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Including Deaf Children At Preschool - Part Three

Find more tips from the mum of a deaf boy, and a creche manager online: Including Deaf Children At Preschool (Part One), & Part Two.

Key Question: what information sources did you use for advice on Charlie’s early learning in the creche? (internet / flyers / other?)

(The Mum)
Our creche owner contacted the NAD (now DeafHear) - we were foundering then - and their liasion met us at the creche where we started to speak out loud about deafness and the fact that Charlie was deaf. In the early days I didn’t use the Internet much, but I did buy a lot of books to read about how to work with a profoundly deaf child. Once I started to understand deafness better and after about a year, I started to use the internet more.

(The Creche Manager)

The mum and myself were in constant contact and discussed any new information that either of us had gathered. The visiting teacher probably was the best source of information we had.

Was some of/all of this information given to the creche owner?

(The Mum)

Any information I passed to the creche was done in conversation more than in any formal way.  Our visiting teacher went to the creche and explained where Charlie should sit for story time, but at that point, there was no formal structure.  I was lucky to have a good relationship with the creche and found them helpful and interested. In fact, they sourced information independently and passed it to me. One example was the Lamh course some of the girls took. I attended this introductory course, which the creche organised for me - Lamh courses not being open to parents of deaf kids!

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NCIRL’s Parent-Child Programme Benefits Literacy

Just recently, the Early Learning Initiative at National College of Ireland launched its new Parent Child Home Programme (PCHP). Many of the programme’s “points” are similar to the home-work the parents of severely to profoundly deaf children need to do, to develop their child’s language as early in life as possible.

Based on a programme started in the US, the PCHP is a “learning through play experience” geared to pre-school children and their parents.

The programme is designed to strengthen the bond between young children and their parents while encouraging children to prepare for starting school.

In every situation, the parent is seen as the child’s first and best teacher. A home visitor employed and trained by PCHP visits the family twice per week for two half-hour sessions.

During this time the visitor interacts with the child while the parent observes. The child is given suitable books and toys based on their stage and needs.

A new book or toy is introduced every week.  In some cases, the child may not like the new toy or book, but doesn’t lose interest due to having options.

When a parent encourages and praises their child, the child’s confidence grows. In school, reading is often seen as something a child must do.  This programme aims to make reading and learning a fun experience for a child.

The PCHP website has lots of tips on how to make learning fun. These can be used in any family situation, regardless of childrens’ hearing abilities.

1. A parent should begin reading with a child very early on, before the child can even talk or sit up. This early introduction helps later learning.

2. A parent should read to a child every day even just for a few minutes. If you enjoy learning and interacting with your child, they will enjoy it too.

3.Make sure that there are lots of reading materials around the house. If a child sees you reading they will want to join in.

4. Cut down on TV time and give your child some paper and crayons to write on.

5. Finally and most importantly, talk to your child. The more words the child hears, the more chance they have to be a good reader and happy student.

In the Dublin area 46 children are participating in this programme, which is funded by local business. Beth Fagan of the Early Learning Initiative says, “If children are equipped with pre-literacy and numeracy skills before school-age they have a greater chance of success right through school.”

Individuals or community representatives who are interested in the PCHP can contact Beth Fagan at The Early Learning Initiative, National College of Ireland, Dublin 1, 01-4498627, www.ncirl.ie/eli or e-mail: bfagan<at>ncirl.ie

Further Reading

Language Development: Linking Items To Words

Introducing Babies & Toddlers To Books & Reading

Baby Books & Flash Cards For Language Teaching

Early Reading Skills For Lifelong Literacy

Including Deaf Children At Preschool - Part One

Study: Video, Games Improve Preschooler Literacy

(compiled by Miriam Walsh)

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One Parent’s Feedback: National Audiology Review

The National Audiology Review is inviting submissions from parents & carers of deaf children and service users, before March 19, 2010.  This feedback comes from a mother of a 4 year old boy who was diagnosed as being profoundly deaf at 14 months old.

1. Newborn Hearing Screening:
Why do babies not automatically have hearing tests at birth? The earlier a diagnosis is, the sooner options can be considered and actions taken. The child can be fitted with the right hearing aids and have access to speech and language services. In this situation the child had to wait until 14 months to be diagnosed and as such, lost out on vital months of intervention.

2. Hearing Aid Moulds:
The delivery of hearing moulds is severely delayed at times. Organisations such as Audi Labs can dispatch an order within days but with the HSE it can take months and in the above situation it took 3 months. Kids are constantly growing and these moulds need changing regularly. What is the point in waiting 3 months when the child could have grown out of that size by the time it arrives? Turnaround times need to be assessed.

3. Staff Replacement:
Where a doctor needs to be replaced either temporarily or permanently the HSE should move faster. In one case, it took 18 months to replace a doctor. This is not acceptable when kids need the services now and 18 months can make a big difference to their development.

4. Lack of Information Packs: The HSE do not supply a parents’ information pack on deafness. Parents have to do their own research and learn from other parents, the internet and resource organizations.

5. Limited clinic hours:
The need for automatic appointments at Hearing Services of the HSE in North Great Georges St. There is currently no process to offer regular appointments. Added to this the need for longer clinic hours. Being closed at lunch time and closing at 4pm leaves little time for working parents.

6. ISL tutor payment scheme:
Currently the payment goes from the Department of Education to the parent to the tutor. Is there any reason why the tutor cannot deal directly with the department?

7. Funding of Cochlear Implant Programme:
The Beaumont Hospital Cochlear Implant Programme is under funded. The sooner a child is fitted with an implant the better their speech & language progress will be.

8. Shortage of Visiting Teachers:
The visiting teacher for the deaf service is under-resourced, which gives teachers a very large caseload and means they sometimes have to miss a weekly appointment. As a home-school liason, their role is under-valued.

As a note to other parents this mother says, “we find most people we have dealt with in all the services to be very helpful, which would indicate that they are doing as best they can either under heavy workloads, possible unnecessary red tape and probable under funding.  If this feedback helps improve the services provided, then that would be great”.

To have your say, email your opinions to primarycare@hse.ie by March 19.

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YouTube Automatic Captioning Moves Out Of Beta

In recent years websites such as CaptionTube and independent services made videos and audio more accessible to deaf or hard of hearing people. In November 2009, Google announced the automatic captioning of videos on its YouTube site to boost captioning provision and support text indexing.

Existing captioning services are not always user friendly or free. With over 20 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute, captions were not a realistic option for each video until now. Google is now betting that this new service will encourage more users to provide captions.

How does it work? Google explains:

“We’ve combined Google’s automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology with the YouTube caption system to offer automatic captions, or auto-caps for short. Auto-caps use the same voice recognition algorithms in Google Voice to automatically generate captions for video.

We’re also launching automatic caption timing, or auto-timing, to make it significantly easier to create captions manually. With auto-timing, you no longer need to have special expertise to create your own captions in YouTube. All you need to do is create a simple text file with all the words in the video and we’ll use Google’s ASR technology to figure out when the words are spoken and create captions for your video.”

This is a positive step forward for Google and one that is welcomed globally. Greg Rice from DeafAccessfilms.com notes that there are more deaf and hard of hearing people in the US than the entire population of Canada - not to mention the worldwide deaf population. He also hopes that this will lead to “the making and showing of captioned films for sales and exhibitions.”

Captioned videos also stand to enhance education. Students can access videos worldwide. National Geographic videos support captions but students can now access new topics like the sciences and even additional languages.

One teacher commented, “working in a district with 5-10 deaf students, this is huge. By law, all DVD’s sold should be CC-enabled but close to one-third do not, and our sign interpreters have to work extremely hard to keep up”.

Further Reading:

Google’s video tutorial for automatic captioning (with captions!)

Captioning YouTube Videos With CaptionTube

TranscribePod Make Podcasts Fully Accessible

Digital Media Content Accessibility For Students

Using Blog Tools For Storytelling & Picture Diaries

(compiled by Miriam Walsh)

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