natalyad

Reliable verbatim Speech to Text Reporting (STTR) for live events

TLDR: If you are looking for accurate and quality live captioning for events and conferences then you NEED to request NRCPD registered 'Speech to Text Reporters (STTR)' formerly known as palantypists.

Please do not use 'respeaking' it is not quick enough, accurate enough or fit for live captioning work.

(This blog originally written in 2018, updated in December 2020)

Skip to how to book genuine STTR.

My focus on captioning for deaf people

While I know captioning is useful for many groups, I speak from a deaf perspective. Deaf people may not have had access to the audio, or only partial access. If there are errors, deaf people may not notice or realise they are there and will come away with an incorrect understanding of what was said.

What is the difference between Speech to Text Reporting (STTR) and Respeaking for captions

Speech to Text Reporting (STTR)

Speech to Text Reporters known as STTR operators use a specialist keyboard (palantype or stenograph) and software so they can input words phonetically and have them show up as actual words on a screen. STTR ops can produce 200-300 words per minute at 98% accuracy. Slightly lower accuracy rates may seem reasonable, but at more than 2-3% errors the intelligibility of the captions decreases and the risk of errors changing meaning increases a lot. Errors are usually very obvious and occur most in people's names and specialist words. Providing STTR operators with preparation materials in advance which include people's names and specialist words reduces the error rate and increases their speed considerably.

STTR ops are registered with organisations like NRCPD (National Registers of Communication Professionals working with Deaf and Deafblind people) who require members to provide proof of their qualifications, undergo training including in ethics of communication support for deaf people and have a have a code of conduct/ethics as well as other things.

Respeaking

Respeakers work in pairs with one respeaker listening to what is said and re-speaking it into specialist software which they have trained to their speech, and the second respeaker going back to correct errors. Every 15 minutes they switch roles to rest their voices.

The accuracy rate of respeaking is lower and errors are less obvious as they tend to just miss out words entirely or substitute the correct word with another word which may not obviously look out of place. Respeakers can't go as fast as 200 words per minute. The slowness means they lag more and more behind the speaker which makes it harder for deaf users to follow. Respeaking often ends up (without indicating they're doing it) skipping entire sentences or paragraphs when they get too far behind the speaker and try to catch up.

Respeakers have no professional registration and no guarantee of being trained about the importance of their role to represent speech correctly for those who otherwise do not have access to the audio. Respeaking is better used for captioning non-live content where someone can listen and correct the captions better afterwards and speed is less important.

Why am I writing about live captioning?

Today I tried to access a livestream of a disability conference about ableism (disablism) in academia. I saw the caption provider and my heart sank...

Respeaking...

This article about respeaking covers many of the issues

Respeaking errors

I listened carefully to 5 minutes of audio and even I as a partially deaf person picked up multiple errors including:

• Entire sentences which I half-heard didn't show up at all in the captions.


• There were several occasions where single words were just missed out.


• At one point the word "sensitive" was captioned as "intensive". That's a massive change to the meaning of what the speaker was saying.


• Another error was an academic's 'principle' "Frank's remission society" was mis-captioned as "part of the remission society" removing the academic's name and work which was effectively an inline citation which was a critical shortcut to the meaning.

Complaining to the conference organisers

I tweeted some complaints about the quality of the captioning and it turns out the conference organisers weren't happy either! They had provided full scripts in advance which would definitely have helped STTR operators and should have helped respeakers.

Of course by the time issues are detected on the day, it's too late. The conference organisers are unhappy. The people relying on captions are unhappy.

Conference organisers don't know the field of "live captioning" support" so are at risk of being scammed or ripped off by agencies which only actually provide poor quality captions. Cost isn't even an issue here as respeaking costs the same or often more than genuine STTR.

How can I book reliable quality STTR?

STTR can be provided in-person or remotely. In person is best for live conferences and often not more expensive for half or whole day events. For anything lasting more than an hour or so, two STTR operators will be needed "co working" because of the demands of the work.

Remote can work well for webinars and very short events but is less good for on the ground events as they lose visual context. There are risks around managing technology to transmit the event audio to the captioner and maintain suitable internet connectivity.

There are two main ways of booking STTR (in person, or remote).

Go directly to STTR Operators

The Association of Verbatim Speech to Text Reporters (AVSTTR) (pronounced Av-Ster) website has options to
1) "Book a reporter" which puts out a general enquiry to everyone in their organisation or
2) "Our reporters" which shows individuals and where they are based so you can contact them directly and see if they are available for your event.

AVSTTR members are all registered with NRCPD and reliable. STTR operators prefer to be contacted directly and you may be able to get better rates.

AVSTTR website contains lots of useful information about STTR as a service.

Go to an agency for STTR operators

Often organisations have procurement rules or it can be easier to use an agency.

However BEWARE some agencies may appear professional, experienced and competent, but in practice frequently provide a very poor captioning service like happened at the conference above. One agency I will not use is AiMedia - who wrecked the above conference and at least 3 other events by sneaking in respeaking instead of STTR; sometimes even when STTR was actually requested.

If I use an agency, I ALWAYS go to either:

121Captions who are deaf-led by Tina Lannin who uses STTR herself and have served me well for over 7 years now.

or

MyClearText who are STTR-operator "writer" led by people who used to do decent captioning for the BBC.

121Captions and MyClearText websites contain lots of useful information about STTR/live captioning as a service.

There is a great film by some American STTRs (called CART) about the technology and STTR writer expertise behind everything they do. Audio description due soon and will be linked when available.

Go back to top of this blogpost.

How do you say that again?
Many people struggle to pronounce words including people in the following situations:

If you have only ever seen the word written down.

English is not your native language.

If you have any kind of hearing loss (deafness).

If you have dyslexia or similar which can make it harder for you to break down words.

Google's define pronunciations
If you type "Define:WORD" into Google's search box you sometimes get a speaker symbol which provides a pronunciation alongside the definition and meaning of the word. The pronunciation is usually in US English but is occasionally in a British English format. It doesn't always make it clear there are differences or multiple acceptable variants.

International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbols
Many dictionaries provide IPA phonetic symbols to guide the user in the word's pronunciation but it requires training to understand and remains difficult for people with reading difficulties.

For example the IPA for the word Advertisement renders as

for the UK/British and US/North American pronunciations.

Online dictionaries with British pronunciation guides
I found some online dictionaries which provide human voices reading out British word pronunciations.

I have listed them below:
1) Cambridge Dictionaries Online
2) Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary
3) Macmillan dictionary
4) http://howjsay.com
I also found one which covers translation of words from one language to another with pronunciation guides

5) Dict.CC

All three dictionaries are using human¹ recorded voices.

All autocomplete words in the searchbox (sometimes unreliable) and provide their own word definitions.

I think the Oxford and Cambridge dictionaries are pretty similar so that may come down to individual preference.

Macmillan has the least cluttered interface.

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 Macmillan Dictionary
Found at http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/

The default pronunciation is British English with an additional North American English pronunciation button available if there is a pronunciation difference for that

 Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary
Found at http://oald8.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com.

Click the red speaker icons labelled BrE for British English and NAmE for North American English pronunciations.

Other Oxford dictionary services can clutter up the screen but definitions are comprehensive and sometimes have a usage note providing more detail.



 Cambridge Dictionaries Online
Found at http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british

Click the red speaker icon for British English and blue speaker icon for North American English pronunciations.

The full screen of the results can be a bit cluttered with ads and semi-related dictionary material but the definitions are comprehensive.



 Dict.cc found at http://www.dict.cc/

Select appropriate languages in the drop down

Results will mix UK, USA and other English forms e.g. Australian pronunciations in but can be distinguished by flags

Provides examples of words in grammatical context with appropriate translations

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I hope you will find these helpful.

* Thanks to Red for testing the pronunciation voices and telling me that they're all human - I couldn't quite tell.

This is my rambly thoughts about the Grayson Perry Who Are You programme episode 3 which is at http://www.channel4.com/programmes/grayson-perry-who-are-you/on-demand/55337-003 until about 2nd December 2014. The deaf bit starts about 27 mins in, after the 2nd ad break.

I'm intrigued by how different people have parsed this programme, both those with some experience of signing deaf people and those who don't. I think Deaf signers can be perceived as more "shouty" than they actually are by non-signers. A hearing friend who doesn't sign has said how he didn't always realise who was speaking whether it was Tomato, Paula or someone else (the terp and that terps don't say anything for themselves in this context) and it wasn't always clear who was saying what and made things very confused. Some visual cueing or better camerawork would have helped with this.

I think overall Grayson has managed to grok a lot of complex issues around Deaf signing identity (and incidentally other deafness and disability issues too) in a very short programme, there was only about 15 minutes of footage dedicated to this segment.

My BSL (rusty level 2 with horrible SSEish grammar) isn't very fluent for pure language vocab/grammar but using the English subs I was able to get the main meaning and use the BSL (where we could see it) for tone, context and personality of the signers. I missed a bunch of stuff hearies picked up from the terp's voice over which I just kinda ignored (I can hear them, but they're not important, the text was better).

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I don't like the first scene with whoopy music accompanying the signing deaf people in groups which are filmed in a way which means you can't even parse the sign and it's just hands and faces flapping about. It's like they're trying to do some "they can't hear isn't that strange" effect to match the whoopy visuals of the signing and succeeded in making me dizzy and feel sick...

Nice to be able to watch Paula, Tomato, the children and the other Deaf people signing although I would have liked it if the whole thing was filmed in an easier to follow BSL kinda way cos there were times I couldn't follow the sign cos of camera angles and stuff.

In the audiology scene, I am struck by the audiologist having quite a strong foreign accent and actually being very hard to understand. And how much outsiders Paula and Tomato seem to be in that space, only "referenced" if someone is actually talking TO them. It feels like they're not fully included in that space - they are outsiders - and audiology looking at Hazel (the younger kid) like she's an Alien or something. It feels like the audiologist is describing Hazel in terms that Paula and Tomato don't really recognise. I'll also note how well behaved the older kid Molly is, she sits still eating her snack and is watching watching. Actually so is Hazel, wide eyed, very still, watching. Too many people in the room to do a good hearing test though, too much visual distraction error!

Tomato talking about his experience of audiology was very interesting, it's not one I share. I am fascinating by the inherently hearie-centric "listen hard" type language used to him as a child which he didn't understand. I laughed (wryly) at the epic fail of audiology giving so many visual clues to when they are beeping the beeper - that's a narrative I've heard a lot from many deaf and HOH people as children (including an ex audiologist who was HOH as a child - not sure if as adult too). Tomato talks of being a child having his hearing tested and trying to meet his parents' expectations. The fear and worry about letting them down, disappointing them and how happy they seemed to be when he indicated 'I've heard that' even when he hadn't heard anything, but he recognised that he had pleased them.

I too remember totally knowing when the audiologists were generating the sounds, my mum's facial expression - especially when she could hear stuff I can't, the tension in the room changing, lights reflecting off things and other things I cant name. As an adult I have to consciously shut off the visual cues when having my hearing tested because I already false positive cos of tinnitus which mimics audiometer tones. It's been an interesting experience watching my mum have her hearing tested after sudden onset unilateral deafness last year - we both grin at the role-reversal, my turn to be the observer.

I don't remember feeling as a child when I had my hearing tested that I had to indicate "I've heard" when I knew they'd set off a sound, somehow (I don't know how) it was OK for me to ignore the visual clues and only indicate when I actually heard something. I used to tell my mum I could tell without sound and she suggested I closed my eyes, and sat with my back to the audiologist and or her. She very much confirmed I only had to indicate when I heard the sound and that they should test properly till we worked out where my levels were. I can't honestly remember hearing tests before they used a clicker but I know I had them cos I've got the audiograms from age 3 somewhere.

Then again, my deafness was not a devastation to my parents. I was born with multiple health issues, some of which were very life-threatening for a short while and others which were complex medical issues in a baby and other lifelong disabilities. My parents worked out that I was deaf by the time I was 8 months old despite an ENT doc claiming I wouldn't be deaf without even checking (even tho people with Microtia and Atresia are often deaf!). It was my parents who noticed my deaf behaviours and pushed for a 'diagnosis' as it were. Their reaction upon my deafness being confirmed, especially my mum's was to learn everything she could about deafness. She fought TheAuthorities for access to medical libraries and attended NDCS conferences and did everything she could to understand what a hearing aid would involve and what my experience of it might be like. I need to see if she's still got the letters she wrote to my grandpa with diagrams of hearing aids and explanations of how sound might sound to me. She and my granddad wrote letters to one another discussing sign language but with my hand impairment, ongoing medical stuff and Manchester being a hotbed of oralism they decided to keep that on the backburner... My mum has never been threatened by my learning sign, whether that was fingerspelling as a child or BSL classes when I went to university.

I am intrigued by a partial shared experience of childhood audiology but very different parental expectations transmitted and received by Tomato vs myself. I can see how feeling you've failed your parents is so psychologically traumatic. I wonder how common each of our experiences are in deaf and HOH from childhood people.

I quite like Grayson's brief summary of BSL as a language and focal point of culture - it was very coherent for such a short narration. The segue into the hearing aid covers bit where Grayson shows Tomato's metallic, silver and spiky hearing aid covers was a bit annoying. Grayson photographs these and interprets it as "I am deaf and I am proud". I wonder if that is how Tomato means it, or whether it's something else. I want to steal the design idea - I will tweet and ask Tomato if he minds! My BAHAs would look ace with silver spiky covers. I'm pretty lazy about decorating my BAHAs.

The scene with the friends was interesting, I recognise Fifi who I think is Paula's sister and Paddy Ladd who the older guy with the beard but not the other two people. I absolutely loved what Fifi said "I'm really sorry, Grayson. You're hearing, so I don't mean to offend you, but I feel like we're constantly trying to please hearing people and fit in with what hearing people want. And deaf people have to put up with really an appalling education system, because people can't be bothered to learn to sign." I relate to that as someone for whom oralism could be deemed a success. It is all about D/deaf people making all the effort, we have to listen, lipread, use hearing aids, constantly strain to hear on hearing people's terms.

Sign languages are more on our (deaf people's) terms and hearing people can access it just as much. Tomato chipping in to say that the militants are the hearing people made me laugh out loud. Hearing people in my experience DO only want deaf people to learn how to speak (note not hear, but SPEAK) and not acquire or use a sign language. Why does everyone care how we speak! Paddy chips in to say that deaf people are ignored and neglected, our language (sign language) is neglected. He says that if the group can teach Grayson how important sign language is, they wonder what else they can teach him. Interestingly I know Tomato was bought up Oral as was Paddy. I don't know about Paula and Fifi (I think they might have been oral too based on later scenes) or the other two who don't say anything.

I was a little bit wary of start of the next scene with the Deaf vs Jewish - the two identities were 'set up' against one another. I think Grayson's comment about "history of victimhood" was bang out of order and somewhat bizarre. However this scene was one of the ones which got to me the most. Paula's mum talking to Paula mostly in English with a few signs, she's clearly tried to learn if not very well. It was interesting watching the body language between Paula and her mum, obviously this is an edited clip, possibly a repeatedly rehashed "old argument" with a worn out script but don't all/many families (of origin?) have those.

Paula had a fair few minutes of camera time where she signed very powerfully about how her sign language was her culture and how much it helped her when 'before' (so I presume she's a later learning BSLer?) she was anorexic and depressed. "If I didn't have my language I wouldn't be here" which I wasn't wasn't sure how to parse that, whether as a 'suicidal' type thing, or an identity thing of her personhood was created, expressed and contextualised through sign language.

Sign language helped Paula understand the world and herself better. I'm not a very good signer, I am out of practice cos I don't socialise much with BSLers in person, my arm impairments limit how much I can sign without pain these days and I am crap at putting the work in to bash grammar into my head. BUT learning BSL even to the limited level that I have, is one of the BEST things I have ever done. Within months of starting my level 1 classes my mum commented to me that my confidence seemed to have gone up and far from damaging my hearing or speech as an audiologist claimed it made my speech even better, increased my "tonality" and has helped me with a lot of language. I can relate to what Paula says there to a significant degree even though I am not culturally Deaf and I don't really live much in the D/deaf worlds except a bit online. That's my deafhood too and bollocks to anyone who doesn't like that or wants to diss BSL or my straddling worlds identities.

The bit where Paula tells her mum how much she valued her mum's cultural heritage of Judaism and loved growing up with it, but it being something she can't pass to her children made me want to cry. I had to stop watching this in my lunch hour at work beacuuse "too much emotional blur for work error". I don't know why, but watching Paula say that to her mum and how she reached out to hold her mum and drew her Mum into a hug gets me every time I watch that scene. It's like they struggle to find a shared language, but a hug shows just how much Paula seems to love her mum even though they might not understand one another or one another's point of view all the time. That hug says to me "I love you, I can't be what you want me to be or how you want me to be, but it's not because I don't love you.". It makes me value the good relationship I have with my mum.

That scene was also important cos I think many deaf people exist in a family of origin situation where they cannot be what their hearing parents want them to be, whether that's "able to hear like hearies" "make an effort" or because they have learned sign language which is not a language of the family or one they have bothered/managed to learn. The cultural identities where the children do not share the same expected cultural heritage of the parents, (many) D/deaf, disabled people and LGBTQ people and maybe to some degree religion. Where there isn't that continuity of family parent to child identity I see that strain and perhaps something about creating a family not of origin in a sense of strong communities. Maybe that is why I feel a kinship with the Deaf community even though I'm not that big a D deafie.

Why is Grayson so obsessed with Tomato's hearing aid covers? OK they are badass and cool but they're like the least important bit of the programme. I didn't SEE Tomato wearing them, or any other hearing aids for that matter in the film... Maybe he did and those scenes were edited out, who knows.

Ohno, the deaf people don't have proper access to music trope... Defining deaf by what (you perceive) they don't have there Grayson? *wince* this seems to be a hugely variable topic and probably not worth poking with any sticks here.

In the final scene showing the groups the artwork Grayson goes back off on one saying the people in this programme all have "issues" and I feel it refers back to him admitting to disagreeing with those people on aspects of their identity like he did with the fat women implying a load of health propaganda from earlier in the programme to invalidate their proudness of identity. Grayson does then go on to talk about some of his perceptions of the deaf people and a politicised identity and a number of fairly nuanced points about Deaf identity but I can't help feeling he's not really grokked the Deaf group as much as he has some of his other subjects in this series.

I wasn't sure what to make about the final artwork for the Deaf group. I have heard a few people saying they're unimpressed online from before I saw the programme. I now realise that Tomato has made it his twitter icon. I was prepared not to like it at all, but I think understanding more of Grayson's logic behind it and seeing the finished version makes me like it more. Grayson did make a nice comment to Tomato that he liked the hearing aid covers cos they were a bit angry which is true, deafies are a bit angry and rightfully so.

I had never used a terp to communicate with a BSL user until I started my current job, I had always just blagged it in Deaf spaces or with signing people with what sign I have and had a lot of support and patience from better BSLers and it was social. Using a terp to communicate with BSL users at work because it's professional is SO much harder (for me) in many ways because it makes things much more stilted and does weird things to turn-taking and conversational flow. At least I can watch the BSL user signing for themselves and get tone which non signers don't get anything from. I wonder how much Grayson will have lost engaging with the Deaf people in this programme from not having any sign language himself as even a bit of sign goes SUCH a long way - I wonder how many BSL users would take a crappy signer vs terpped conversation.

I'd say this episode of the series is the least-good of the three, with the least apt artworks for the subjects, only one group the fat women really loved theirs, the Northern Irish Loyalists clearly felt they were being mocked somehow and I think they were.

I think the Deaf people were covered better than they would have been by most hearing presenters and I'd give it a solid 8/10 in that they did cover a number of complex issues and didn't get side tracked into OMG Deaf Eugenics or some of the other boring stereotypes.

Context for this blogpost

I've been hearing a lot about increased problems with Access to Work (AtW) over the past 12-18 months and thought I'd collate some information all in one post so I can point people at it - this post will be a work in progress.

Access to Work is the government's system for providing assessment and funding for support for disabled and deaf employees in the UK. The government likes to talk about things in pure economic terms but will ignore their own figures which show in 2005 that for every £1 spent on AtW, the wider 'economy' benefitted by £1.48. The primary source for this is nearly impossible to find other than cited as DWP 2005 but it was cited by Liz Sayce in her widely cited Getting in, staying in, and getting on report colloquially known as "The Sayce Report".

If you want to help

If you want to do something to help, even if you are not an AtW user or your AtW is working well for you please consider joining Srtop Changes to Access to Work and watching the video of Jenny Sealey's rally speech in BSL with English subtitles.

Access to Work has never embedded true accessibility by design

Access to Work has never been the most accessible or user friendly system. Administered by the Jobcentre Plus (JCP) within the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) it feel oh so very much like the hassle of trying to claim social security benefits such as job seekers allowance (JSA). I should know, I've claimed both.

Examples include

AtW not communicating accessibly,

Repeatably asking deaf people to telephone them even if AtW is needed to access deaf-suitable-telephony;

sending print letters to blind and partially sighted people even if they don't (yet) have technology to access them.

These things matter because they expose the lack of inclusion and respect for deaf and disabled people at the heart of the organisation. Processes are more important than access!

Recently the DWP has made large numbers of the AtW caseworkers redundant and closed down contact centres. This means that instead of a named advisor, we now have a nameless contact centre so can't even 'train someone up' to our communication/access needs, but have to start afresh every time which is time consuming and stressful.

AtW users have not been officially informed of changes such as redundancy of case workers or changes in "the process", we only find things out when postal addresses fall out of use (or we check the gov.uk website and see things have changed), telephone numbers and email addresses don't work or our support workers are not paid. This is made harder by the fact that even advisers who are still in their jobs don't answer their phone, return calls or respond to emails.

Collating experiences

I'm going to collate people's personal experiences of Access to Work in this post and write a separate post of my own about my experiences of this potentially brilliant but institutionally disablist support system.

I'll put things under categories of D/deaf and disabled separately as D/deaf people are being disproportionately affected as a single-impairment group due to the high cost of communication support workers.

I am happy to receive links to sensible resources and people's experiences in English or BSL in comments, to @natalyadell or to natalyadell at gmail dot com and I'll upload them when I can.

Deaf/deaf and HOH people's AtW experiences

Ian Noon - Parliamentary Campaigns Manager at National Deaf Children's Society (NDCS) -
Access to Work difficulties via Limping Chicken - February 2014

William Mager - Series Producer, See Hear
Will changes to disability work grants affect deaf people the most? article in BBC Ouch magazine - October 2014.

Jenny Sealey MBE - Artistic Director at Graeae a UK disability led theatre company and co-artistic director of London 2012's paralympic opening ceremony.
Our mission could be in jeopardy.” Graeae’s Jenny Sealey on impact of Access to Work problems on theatre company. Limping Chicken article outlining the issues impacting deaf and disabled people in Graeae and potential impact on small disability-led organisations.

People with other impairments

Jess Thom - CoFounder of Touretteshero comedienne and children's worker.
Access Impossible article about her recent difficulties with Access to Work - Oct 2014.

Howard Hardiman - Freelance artist, author, illustrator who has a progressive physical impairment.
The trouble with not giving up blogpost about his recent experiences with AtW

Robin - Part-time self employed printmaker
Access to Work - the government's in charge of another car crash blogpost about his experiences of AtW and discussion around rhetoric and structure of the system

Links, campaign groups and general information about AtW

Gov UK Access to Work site

Disability Rights UK factsheet F27 on Access to Work

Action on Hearing Loss webpages about Access to Work for employees and employers

Deaf ATW a site set up by an interpreter to support people in challenging (poor) AtW decisions. Contains BSL video information about some issues. Outlines a number of issues mostly affecting deaf people in AtW terms.

See Hear Access to Work special episode available until ~20th November.

National Deaf Children's Society (NDCS) submissions to the Department of Work and Pensions Select Committee inquiry [PDF].

Stop Changes to Access to Work Campaign latest update and more information at Stop Changes to Access to Work main website.

News articles about Access to Work

OCT 2014
Access to Work crisis: Minister apologises for bungled reforms Disability News Service.

Access to Work crisis: Another Deaf leader speaks out Disabiity News Service.

Access to Work crisis: Minister is ‘full of hot air’ Disability News Service.

UK Council on Deafness welcomes Minister’s commitment to improve Access to Work

Work and Pensions Committee Oral evidence from Select Committee on 29th Oct 2014

You are a deaf or hard of hearing child in mainstream school sometime between 1985 and 2005.

You wear hearing aids (or a cochlea implant and processor) which may or may not work to varying degrees to aid your hearing. You may also be relying on visual cues to know what is going on in the classroom. The classroom can be very noisy.

One day your teacher of the deaf brings a radio aid into school. The receiver box connects to your hearing aids or CI processors with shoes, and wires, the box is clipped or botched onto your clothing somehow, probably in some way which is uncomfortable or annoying. If it’s nearer 2005 you have small connectors which clip into your hearing aids or CI processors which instead of being bulky are fiddly and annoying and you’re constantly terrified of losing them. Your teacher is given a transmitter unit which he or she wears around their neck, everyone tells you it is to make their voice louder so you can hear it better.

When you are wearing the radio aid receiver plugged in and turned on and the teacher is using their transmitter in this scenario you are able to hear their voice - right inside your head. It might help you understand what the teacher is saying better, but it makes it harder to hear or focus on what the other children are saying. You don't get told there's a mode which allows you to hear the teacher and the classroom noise at the same time as the transmitter is probably set up for you and might be locked so you can't change it.

The teacher instructs the class to get on with some work, which you do like almost everyone else. You write your name, the date and assuming you understood the instructions the required title at the top of your page and start working through the tasks. If you are lucky you get into the zone and are getting through the work.

"JOHNNY, STOP THAT!!!"

*You flinch!*

Your hands fly to your hearing aids or the radio aid and the OFF switch.

The teacher has just bellowed at 90 decibels, right into your head (via the radio aid).

Your heart pounds, adrenaline floods through your body.

Oh.... It’s not you in trouble.... It’s someone else....

Breathe slowly, your heart still pounding. You look around the room, most people are just working away, they didn't even notice the shouting or your flinches.

This kind of shouting interruption or other sudden noisy incident isn't uncommon. Loud noises can happen every few minutes if the usual suspects have a naughty day. Every time it happens though, you get startled and cannot concentrate on your work.

You might decide to leave your hearing aids and or radio aid off or turned low so the shouting doesn't startle you. If you are lucky you might be able to re-focus on your work which you want to finish in time so the teacher is not actually cross with you.

*Tap on the shoulder*

The teacher is standing next to you looking cross. Their mouth is moving but you can’t hear much of or anything they are saying. You turn your hearing aids and or radio aid back on cautiously as you know there’s a high chance that the sound of the words coming out of the teacher’s mouth are too loud because they are cross, their face distorted with anger, and this time it is you who is in trouble.


"Why have you turned your hearing aids/radio aid off?"

"Mrs Teacher-Of-The-Deaf says you need to keep your hearing aids/radio aid on at all times."

"HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD YOU..."

There is no way you can tell the teacher that you turned your hearing aids and or radio aid off because they kept yelling into the transmitter and scaring you. Or that your entire school life is a confusing mixture of loud and confusing noises or inaudible confusing speaking people.

You hate the radio aid for other reasons too. The stupid wires which get tangled in everything, sometimes sending your hearing aids flying which makes other people laugh at you. The receiver box might be ugly; NHS beige or poo coloured; it might be too heavy for your clothes which can cause it to go kerplunking to the floor - and if it breaks that’s another thing you get into trouble for. Hearing aid harnesses are hideous, you don't want your parents to get that idea into their heads. Everyone else gets to rush out of the classroom at the end of the day, but you have to remember to turn off, unplug and charge the radio aid or return it to somewhere for safekeeping overnight, knowing you’ll get into trouble if you forget, or worse get constantly nagged by the teacher about it.

And that’s before the ways using radio aids is stressful. Teachers who fiddle with the transmitter or have rustly clothes which make a horrible noise. Having to remember to collect the transmitter from the teacher at the end of every teaching session before they disappear off to wherever teachers go after classes, this is worse at secondary school with up to 6 or 7 classes a day. Desperately trying to shove the radio aid bits into your school bag quickly so you can keep up with everyone else - they are already half way to the next classroom. Supply teachers deciding that a ‘child like you’ can’t possibly be responsible for such an important and expensive piece of technology so refuse to return the transmitter to you; preferring to hide it somewhere in the terrifying staffroom. Meaning you will have to go and knock on the dreaded staffroom door during a break and hope it isn't someone scary who answers it. Then actually go into the staffroom while it’s full of teachers as only you know what the stupid radio aid looks like.

There are some entertaining moments, the time the teacher forgets to turn the transmitter off and goes to gossip in the staffroom; so you and any friends can try to listen in. The teacher will try to blame you for their forgetfulness though, and try to get your parents on their side. It's funny the first time the teacher goes to the toilet with the transmitter turned on, but gets pretty boring when repeated.

All of this hassle for noise that is IN YOUR HEAD. Often doesn't feel worth the hassle. You might stop using it in secondary school, stop caring what the SENCO or the Teachers of The Deaf say; they can’t make you, they’ll just nag and mither you about it. If you stop using it for long enough maybe they'll forget you ever had it.

...

Some years later you’re thinking about university and suddenly the spectre of radio aids appears again...

The university disability adviser talks enthusiastically about how helpful radio aids might be for you in lecture theatres where there’s up to 300 students, not the 30 max you are used to at school or college. The DSA Needs Assessor also goes on about radio aids, swears they’re much better now than they used to be and might even have some they want you to try.

You can’t think of anything worse. Bad memories. Hassle.

Giving control of your hearing whatever hearing you have to someone else? Not a chance! No thanks!

---

Disclaimer, commentary and my personal experience
To use or not use radio aids as an adult should be a deaf person's choice.

As a deaf adult I have returned to using radio aids, several years after the BAHA got appropriate connectors. Access to Work provided me with a Connevans fmGenie in 2007 and allowed an upgrade to a Comfort Digisystem in 2013.

Radio aids don't amplify sound "make it louder" no matter what anyone tells you. They eliminate the distance between the speaker's voice or desired sound and the listener, and in doing so increase the signal compared to the (background or unwanted) noise. Having a microphone a few centimetres away from a speaker's mouth vs being two or more metres away makes a huge difference because physics happens in the form of the "inverse squared law. Radio aids can help in large rooms with lots of people shuffling around in them, or reduce the unwanted noise of the increasingly ubiquitous noisy digital projector and air conditioning systems.

Visible radio aid systems and symbols of deafness also make people do better deaf awareness, as they have a constant visual reminder. I love it when I can find another deaf or hard of hearing person to wire up to one of my spare radio aids as "visible reminder" so I don't have to necessarily have to use mine myself! I may write about the complexities of visible vs invisible impairments and and and some other time...

Radio aids are still annoying:
Many of the issues in the article above haven't changed since 1986 when I got my first poo coloured Phonak radio aid. I still remember its white 9 volt Nickel-Cadmium rechargeable batteries which needed charging every 6 hours, fortunately in the classroom at primary school. Secondary school's "charging place" was up 4 flights of stairs at the furthest part of the school from the school bus stops. I could charge the radio aid, or miss all the buses home and we weren't supposed to use the public buses. The units were heavy so carrying them to and from school (on top of all my other "assistive tech" wasn't an option. Learning to manage the listening requirements of so many subjects and teachers in so many different classrooms was hard enough without having to give and collect the transmitter unit from teachers every lesson. I got my first Bone Anchored Hearing Aid (BAHA) in early 1992 aged 12 and they didn't have radio aids which connected to them, so I was able to stop using it.

Not everyone can use the micro receiver units, I'm one of them as I choose to use a weird BAHA which doesn't use the modern connectors. I still have wires and receiver boxes and I ping hearing aids and glasses everywhere quite often - it's less bad as an adult as I can crack a joke before anyone else can - all I need is false teeth to finish the set etc. Speakers are still notorious for fiddling with the transmitters - one radio aid I tried sounded appalling if the transmitter casing rubbed against anything! I'm still responsible for making sure I have the right wires, working hearing aid batteries + spares, charged radio aid batteries, and enough brain to remember how to make it work. I manage by having a set of everything in one bag for that purpose only.

As an adult, I have more choices. I can download the radio aid manuals and set the system up the way I want to, or twiddle with the setting whenever I like. I very rarely give a radio aid transmitter unit to a speaker because I still hate having to ask for the transmitter back cringing inside every time I have to. I usually use a conference microphone which I put somewhere convenient for me and away from people's poky hands. I can and do control the volumes of different systems. Adults speaking in adult situations tend not to shout suddenly. I can request some deaf awareness a lot of the time.

With everything written above in mind: Sometimes I am that disability advisor being enthusiastic to a prospective or current deaf or hard of hearing student about radio aids. Sometimes I see my students cringe and I wonder if they have bad memories of radio aids too - and will ask them. I try to make suggestions about ways a radio aid can be used in a way which is useful while not giving other people control over the deaf/HOH student's hearing.

I am also aware that some people just don't get any or enough gain or assistance from radio aids to overcome the intrinsic annoyingness of using them. That is OK too.

Whatever my students choose, they are adults who have the right to make and live with the consequences of their choices. What I can do, is give them the opportunity to make an informed choice and know that they can change their mind or talk to me about deafness and study stuff as I might have ideas and I will try hard not to be judgemental even if I think they're making a mistake - which are their mistakes to make.

I wish every teacher of the deaf, SENCO and parent of a deaf child knew what wearing a radio aid was like. Even if it isn't possible to allow a deaf child in education to "opt out" of using one. Our experiences as children and teenagers often inform our feelings and choices as adults.

Why am I writing a post about lipspeaking
I asked various real life and Internet friends if they knew what lipspeaking was and how it worked and more than 75% had no idea or were guessing. People said they would like a blogpost.

I have to start out by saying I am not an expert on lipspeaking. I have known what lipspeakers are since 1995 but never used one myself or been around anyone using one. I am sharing information and knowledge that I have acquired from being on various online deaf communities. This post contains some of my contextualised opinions as well as information.

I am using the word deaf to mean anyone with a hearing impairment and or has any kind of difficulty accessing spoken speech sounds e.g auditory processing disorder etc.

What is a lipspeaker
A lipspeaker is a person who has been specially trained to repeat a speaker's speech in a more easy to lipread way. Usually silently but they can use their voice on request.

Lipspeakers may add fingerspelling, sign language, body language and other cues to their communication and will adapt their communication according to what the deaf client requests and needs.

Where the original speaker is speaking very fast a lipspeaker may have to rephrase what is said and only repeat the more essential and salient points. A lipspeaker is supposed to be less than a sentence behind the original speaker.

There are different levels of lipspeaking qualification. Level 3 seems to be the level required for professional lipspeaking.

North American terms
North Americans often use the term "speech reading" for what we UKers call lipreading.

I now wonder what lipspeakers are called in America...? Googling didn't initially help so I asked humans on the Internet and got an answer in under 5 minutes. Lipspeakers in America are called "oral transliterators".


What does lipspeaking look like
As of April 2013 there is only one 2min35s subtitled video on the brand new ALS website. The video is of a spoken voice which the filmed lipspeaker is lipspeaking for. This video is a deliberately staged and slightly exaggerated example of lipspeaking which is well designed to demonstrate the principles and concepts of lipspeaking.

http://lipspeaking.co.uk/videos/

I am hoping (and have asked) if the ALS can upload some different short clip examples of lipspeaking in the wild and using different modifications like sign language and language modification.


Lipspeaking in situational contexts
Mileage is going vary hugely for how useful people find lipspeaking dependent on many factors such as:

When they became deaf e.g at birth or before they developed language, early childhood, adulthood or in old age.

Rapidity of deafness whether sudden or gradual.

Level of deafness.

Type of deafness.

Amplification choices - none, hearing aids, CIs, others.

Communication choices - speech, residual hearing, sign (BSL/SSE/SEE), cueing and more.

Education - level, quality, type, awareness.

Individual personality and preference and situation.

For oral deaf (people who communicate primarily with speech and use residual hearing possibly with hearing aids and cochlea implants) and deafened (those who have been hearing and become deaf) people lipspeaking enables them to access the tone, cadence, meaning and body language of the original speaker while accessing the clarity provided by the lipspeaker. Many people could not access this with text based communication options.

A lipspeaker (like a sign language interpreter) can move around with a deaf person in situations like conferences and places where small groups of people are clustered around talking.

A lipspeaker terping for a group may well be much much easier to follow as it's a single person rather than having to look around to find the new speaker and switch focus to them and their new lipspeaking patterns. It takes deaf people longer to realise a new speaker has started talking and "lock in" to the new speaker's speech patterns.

To lipread English (or an other spoken language) effectively requires the deaf person to have a suitable vocabulary for understanding what has been said. Basically someone has to have the language and vocabulary in the first place to make use of this so it may not be suitable for a BSL user who does not have good English.


Lipreading classes
I am a huge fan of lipreading classes for people who are deaf, especially those who become deafened as I believe they teach a lot of very useful skills for coping with being deaf in the real world.

Action on Hearing Loss's Lipreading page: http://www.actiononhearingloss.org.uk/get-involved/campaign/read-my-lips/lipreading-for-people-with-hearing-loss.aspx

I must sign up for some of those classes myself at some point.


Association of Lipspeakers
The professional body which represents lipspeakers is the Association of Lipspeakers (ALS) and their newly designed website is at http://www.lipspeaking.co.uk/. This website is pretty comprehensive and worth a read in their own words.

You can also search for lipspeakers on the National Registers of Communication Professionals (NRCPD) website at http://www.nrcpd.org.uk/ Tip, you have to provide a location before it'll let you select professional type in the next field.

Many lipspeakers also have their own websites.

Lipspeaking seems to cost approx £30-£40 an hour and may be charged in minimum increments of 2 hours, or by the half/whole day. Two lipspeakers may be required for long or complex assignments.


My thoughts on lipspeaking for me
I think lipspeaking still requires the deaf person to concentrate a lot.

Lipreading and using residual hearing is tiring and only about 35% of the English language is even possible to lipread from normal lip patterns alone. I do not yet know if this is higher for lipspeakers (using modifications and otherwise).

Last time I was tested (artificial conditions, previous hearing aids) using single words and careful male audiologist spoken sentences:

Without lipreading my comprehension was ~60%

With lipreading my comprehension was 90%

I found the lag on the ALS video somewhat disconcerting and am not sure that I would gain much from a lipspeaker that I don't get from lipreading most speakers for myself. In fact watching the video felt much like my few experiences of sharing someone's BSL terp where it was useful and gave me some extra info but extremely tiring to take advantage of as my BSL is fairly poor level 2 standard.

I think I use a lot of my energy processing audio, even with lipreading or sign language supplementation. This means my memory for audio information is poor. At work I have to make notes or I'll not remember what my students have said properly. I have an excellent (as in frightening people by what details I recall) memory for information I have seen presented in text.

While I haven't experienced a true test of lipspeaking I don't think it is for me. However I think more people should know about it and evaluate whether it's something they would find useful and share this information with deaf and hearing people.


Questions? and comments are welcomed
If you have any questions, chuck em in the comments. Please tell me if I use words which you don't know, so I can go back and expand/define them if needed.

I'll probably edit this post as I go along.

I've seen a lot of people confused by Next Generation Text Relay (referred to as NGTR from now on) so I will try and simplfy info and cite my sources at the end.

I will assume deaf and hearing users for simplicity and likely common users. I am aware this will affect users with speech impairments and deafblind users.

OfCom's BSL translation of the NGTR approval.

If you don't know about existing TextRelay phone services for deaf and speech impaired people

I recommend you read my other blogposts on TextRelay (formerly TypeTalk).

Deaf and speech impaired people's access to telephones which outlines what a textphone is and UK's TextRelay.

Receiving an incoming call from a textphone user via TextRelay explaining incoming TextRelay calls.

Four main modes for using a relay service covering a lot more detail about the variety of options.

Next Generation Text Relay - NGTR will provide the following improvements to pre 2014 TextRelay services:

1) Allows the deaf person to use their regular PC (windows, mac, linux), tablet or smartphone device (Android, Apple's iOS) or Braille equipment to to connect to NGTR. This means no more expensive custom textphone/minicom hardware and no more needing an analogue telephone line.

[edit: Someone has pointed out to me that there doesn't seem to be info on how to be billed if you don't use a telecoms provider. I am looking into this as I couldn't see the answer in the OfCom documents. I am worried this might mean we need 'a phoneline' either mobile or landline or link in with a VOIP provider which is hassle and unfuture proof.]

2) Allows us to drop the 18002 dialing prefix that had to be dialled before the deaf person's usual telephone number. This can now be handled via a "TextNumber" which is basically a fake telephone number which automatically routes incoming calls via NGTR before connecting the call to the deaf user. The deaf user will need to register a TextNumber and give it out to people. No more organisations claiming they can't dial or store 18002. Users can still use and dial via 18002 if they wish to.

3) Allows both users to be able to speak and hear one another as well as having relaying of various parts of the call. This means deaf users with residual hearing can hear what is spoken as well as having relaying, or speak for themselves VCO style more naturally while having an op to help relay if there are some words which aren't easy to understand. I am not sure how this will work at implementation, if we'll need a modem/landline or if we can connect via VOIP, suspect it's one of those things we won't know till NGTR launches.


Official (initial) launch date for NGTR is 18th April 2014, but it's all gone a bit quiet, so we don't know if this means there will be a slight delay or not.

Questions deaf and hearing people have asked me

How will deaf and hearing NGTR users get the NGTR apps?
The windows/mac/linux apps will be downloadable from the NGTS website. The Android Apps will be in the app store and the iOS (Apple) apps will be from the Apple app store. The Apple apps may be slightly delayed due to Apple's rigorous approval systems.

The apps should all be free. It is also possible that once the NGTR goes live that other organisations may write apps or integrate NGTR functionality into their own apps as the standards should all be open and coherent to telecoms-techies.


How will a deaf person make a call with NGTR
The 18001 prefix will remain for deaf people. Deaf people dial 18001 plus the person's usual number on our smartphones, the 18001 should trigger the app on a smartphone and it will connect to relay and we should be able to handle calls much like we do at present, just on a wider range of devices. I presume the same from the desktop apps but don't know how the phone connection works just yet.

We will be able to dial any number we want after the 18001 just like we have always done, we don't need any pre-registration once we have the apps.


How will a hearing person make a call to a deaf person with NGTR?
They can use the 18002 system that exists at present, OR they can use our new TextNumber which will start with 03 for landlines and 07 for mobiles. This will connect them via the relay service.

I believe using the TextNumber will automatically trigger the app on our PC/smartphone etc and it will flash/ring/pop up and we can answer it in software.


How to register for a TextNumber (fake relay phone number)
Register with Next Generation Text Service (NGTS) via an automated process using the device and number you wish to use. This will generate an automated TextNumber for that device's number. I assume this will be possible entirely in text as needed.

TextNumbers should be free to us, one TextNumber per number. If we change mobile/landline numbers we can just move our existing text number to cover it.

We will have to use our TextNumber once a year to keep it from being de-activated.

Our TextNumber will show up on callerIDs and can be withheld as usual. When calling emergency services 18000 our original number will show for localising us purposes but the services will be told the TextNumber by the relay op.


Can deaf and hearing people in the same household share a phoneline.
Yes! For calls to come through to the house or even mobile just give out the usual number. For calls to come via relay give out the relevant TextNumber.

I am not sure if the mobile TextNumber will handle SMS smoothly or if we'll end up with one mobile number for SMS and another for incoming calls via relay. I hope it won't be two numbers, if it is, and it's annoying we can complain and insist OfCom get that changed.


Will the relaying in NGTR be speech recognition or a human operator?
It will be a human operator required to type at least 40wpm (unless recipient needs it slower e.g. is using Braille) and on average 60wpm. This is a bit slow and NADP and SENSE have raised concerns with OfCom who may revise the standard upwards. Early indications from people online are even pre-release of NGTR relay ops are faster and smoother than usual...

There doesn't seem to be a plan to use computerised speech recognition as the technology is simply no where near suitable yet.


Can businesses download the app and have deaf people contact them directly through NGTR?
Yes, Text-to-Text calls will still be possible via the app or current textphone devices without the relay assistant. Businesses can download the app on their own systems.

Not sure why anyone would want to do the above give many deaf people would prefer online chat systems either via a website or Skype. Also thought needs to be put into how businesses will detect and answer incoming calls swiftly.


How will calls be paid for?
For the hearing person calling a deaf person using TextNumbers they will be billed at the usual minutely rate with no automatic rebate as the main purpose of TextNumbers is for businesses who won't care. An automatic rebate was deemed unlikely to be routinely necessary due to the prevalence of 'inclusive minutes' and 'minute bundles' which NGTR calls must be able to come out of via landline and mobile service providers.

A hearing caller using 18002 prefix instead of the TextNumber will still get the usual rebate (if their telecoms provider handles it right) which would work for someone who called a deaf person regularly. Although I'd expect a regular caller of a deaf person for long calls to be using something civilised like instant messaging e.g Skype etc or SMS or video calls :).

For the deaf person we will still be using a prefix 18001 so will automatically get our rebate and our telecoms company MUST provide that. I think this means that we will have NGTR items on our usual phone bills and landline and mobile phone companies have to handle this by 18th April even though they have not had enough time to test it. My understanding is Telecoms companies have to give us rebate, so might have to give us free calls via relay till they sort it out. :)

Sources and links

Next Generation Text Service Website very sparse at present, I hope it'll improve ASAP.

OfCom's NGTR documents page which is a bit confusing.

Annex 6 is worth reading for a simple breakdown of stuff.

OfCom Review of Relay Services Oct 2012 contains useful stuff in detail.

BSL explanation of NGTR from OfCom from 3rd March .

NGTR explained by Limping Chicken.

Sense deaf-blindness charity response to NGTR.

I've just finished watching the See Hear episode (Series 33, Episode 30 with Clive interviewing Paddy Ladd about cochlea implants.

Wow! That is completely not what I'd been told it was. It took me a while to click into Paddy's signing but I think I was following more of his tone (and cheating with subtitles) by the end!

Paddy was not the hardcore anti-hearing anti-oral-communication radical I had heard him described as recently. He was a calm, reasonable, rational and logical interviewee who's reasons for concern are entirely reasonable...

For example he outlined many of the reasons that the Deaf BSL using community had been concerned about cochlea implants in the 1980s. This was a time sign language using deaf people were growing as a community and fighting against the language, culture and education deprivation imposed on them by the hearing world. Cochlea implants threatened their community and culture as well as being promoted by entities which had historically not always been as ethical as they should have been.

Paddy talked about why he wrote the article "Oralism's Final Solution" in 1985 where he likened cochlea implants to wiping out of deaf people (I must try and get a full-text copy). It was clear to me this was a 2014 Paddy looking back at his 1985 article and putting it in context of the politics and the time. I can't tell if his views are different or if he can separate a personal distaste from a reality which isn't as scary as expected...

Paddy says he was always advocated for bilingualism as hearing aids have been around in various forms for nearly 100 years and he was never against that but felt cochlea implants are marketed as a way of making deaf people not deaf any more whereas his belief is a lot like mine which is we remain deaf regardless of our aided-hearing options/access etc.

Paddy talked of his early work as a deaf social worker and working with the often hearing families devastated by the news of their child's deafness. He was very very specific and seemed to understand just how devastating have a child diagnosed as deaf could be to families and the very scary and real challenges learning sign language is.

Paddy outlined very succinctly the reasons he felt the Politically Oralist agenda (my terms, nowt official) was harmful to everyone in the D/deaf communities. This focus on hearing and speech and absolute banning of sign language resulted in only the less-deaf children being able to succeed and being praised while the more-deaf children were ignored and regarded as failures. More-deaf children resented their less deaf peers and often deaf people of all levels would try and cover up signs of hearing/oralism from the Deaf political world for fear of being bullied by the people who were most cut out by oralism.

I think I agree with Paddy that a lot of the *ouch* in our D/deaf spaces "I don't like X deaf people cos I was bullied by them for a Y feature of my deafness" "I was an X deafie bullied by Y deafies so I don't like them" etc etc is absolutely because of political oralism which was how structural audism is often manifested. The personal pain is caused by the wider structural and institutional world in which we all live and are affected by.

I strongly believe that deaf people as individuals need to educate ourselves all round about different deaf cultures and communities as well as structural audism to put our personal *ouches* into context and try to understand one another's perspectives and experiences rather than the actually endless infighting!

Paddy talked a LOT about bilingualism and how he would like to see all deaf children given access to sign language so that we have a true choice in the deaf and hearing worlds. This is what I would like to have had for myself so this resonated with me. It is so much harder to learn sign language as an adult than as a child. I'd also say we should be given access to ranges of tools/options, lipreading, assertiveness, cueing, and anything else I've missed. Classes should be available for adults for reasonable cost or free for those of us who are deaf.

Also to my surprise Paddy wasn't hardcore on Deafhood being only for big D political British Sign Language as primary/preferred language deafies. He very clearly talked of deafhood changing and how new ideas contribute to that. The description he gave made me feel like *I* have a right to a deafhood.

Paddy talked about changes in the Deaf community with more and more using hearing aids (and hiding them less in Deaf space) and getting cochlea implants and still signing and stuff. He talked about people signing and speaking freely, removing competition and removing sense of shame for having aspects for hearing culture.

That to me seemed so pertinent. We're fighting cos we're competing. It's not a zero sum game. There are limited resources, but we could be working so much cleverer (and a lot kinder) with one another.

The episode also covered many people who don't really deafine (oh heck, typo, I'm leaving that one in cos it is apt) as Deaf or deaf/HOH but as a bit of both in different contexts. One of the case study people used the term SSH - sign, speak, hear - which I liked as a bit of all that works.

Paddy also talked a bit about WHO makes the decisions about deaf people, is it us, or is it the wider society? Are we included and involved in the processes. Focus should be on quality deaf education, analysis of achievement and creating an actually working model to work from without vested interests guiding agendas.

Paddy's views on genetic eradication of deafness were more like his 1985 views on cochlea implants as he felt this really was the final solution. He seemed more resigned to an inevitable but said that there needed to be clear thinking and full policies from deaf communities engaging with this. If BSL is protected properly as a language, this will matter less because UN Convention on Human Rights protects languages and their users.

I am not sure legal language protection means an awful lot in practice but this makes a lot more sense to me than some of the other reasons why BSL campaigners seem to think BSL is special in terms of basic rights to "communication support" and "education" compared to non signing options available and preferred/needed by many of us which I feel should be fought on a mostly shared platform not separated and divided ones!

I am less worried by genetics. Very few people's deafness is genetic. Only 13% of people are born with their impairments. There are people born deaf from non-genetic deafness or spurious genetic conditions. Fewer than 10% of deaf children are born to deaf parents meaning that most of the deaf community has been coming from non deaf homes. Thanks to vaccines I am of the last generation of infants deafened by Measles and Rubella; meningitis is down a great deal and there's greater awareness of symptoms. Some people are still deafened. Some of us still have random deafnesses. At this point I don't see genetic options being forced on people and like with cochlea implants I suspect the outcome won't quite be what any of us expect.


I am fascinated by the difference in how different deaf people/groups have perceived this See Hear episode. I felt it was largely positive. See Hear does have a BSL bias, some which I feel is fair enough and acknowledged and some which I think is claimed not to be a bias when it totally is (e.g. way presenter describes/praises a signing person vs a mostly-oral person in the summing up of random stuff).

By See Hear standards this episode was amazingly accepting of different models of deafhood! Then again, it promoted a bilingualism model that I would like as my own... For those deaf people who do not wish to use sign language I could see how it would be perceived differently...

I need to think about how to talk about deafhoods and the different lived experiences and needs and how to try and get us all playing nicely in the sandbox together, recognising, understanding and respecting one another's narratives, hurts and hopes. A lot to think about.

Receiving an incoming call from a textphone user via TextRelay

*ring ring* *ring ring*

Please hold for an operator-assisted call from a textphone user

The computerised female voice telling you that you are the lucky recipient of a TextRelay call

For more information about Textphones and TextRelay see my post deaf and speech impaired people's access to telephony or the UK's TextRelay website.

Hanging up on the scary recorded message is common

This voice is so much like automated spam that I am not surprised so many people hang up on it as soon as they hear "computerised voice". I almost expect to be hung up on by 75% of organisations or recipients not used to receiving calls via TextRelay.

I'll generally forgive one hang-up by someone who hasn't used relay before. However it's often 2, 3 or even 4 or more hangups on the recorded message or even a live operator themselves that gets tiring and stressful. Sometimes TextRelay can redial for me, so I don't get another call-connection charge, but sometimes I have to redial from scratch which is slow due to all the connecty gubbins that has to happen.

Hanging up on TextRelay users is unlawful as well as annoying!

I should also point out that it is unlawful for an organisation to hang up on a relay user or refuse to accept the call as it is disability discrimination under the Equality Act 2010 access to goods and services by denial of service. There is case law Gordon Waring v DCW Private Hire Cullingworth Taxis.

I have occasionally had staff at an organisation be very rude to me (taxi firms are notorious) and the operator on relay and refuse to take my call. I usually try and follow this up with a complaint because on one occasion they did apologise and promise to train their staff.

Please do take TextRelay calls - hold the line

The best thing to do if you hear Please hold for an operator-assisted call from a textphone user is hold the line and follow the instructions. Even if the message turns out to be spam, they can't charge money to your phonebill while you just listen and it is at worst a few seconds of your time.

You may also hear Please wait. Please wait before an operator connects but they should connect within a minute or two.

TextRelay Operator connects into the call

Once the relay operator (sometimes called relay assistant) connects they will say something like

Hello, you have a call from a deaf or speech impaired person and I will be relaying the call. Please say "go ahead" when you have finished speaking.

You can ask the operator at any time to explain or clarify how to use the service as this may not be automatically offered due to customer preference testing.

Turn taking on a relay call

Calls via TextRelay can currently only allow one person to speak at a time, much like a radio. This is because of the mixed modes of the call.

If you say yes to receiving the call, the textphone using caller will get the first turn to speak. If you have said who you are, this doesn't always get passed on. You can say "Yes, I accept this call, please say it's James on the line. Go Ahead

Once you have said Go ahead the operator will let the textphone user know it is their turn.

The textphone user may type their response to you, or they may speak it (see my TextRelay modes post for more info).

Textphone user is typing their responses

If the response is typed, (possibly the more common way TextRelay is used) the operator will speak what is typed to you. The operator will do their best but may mispronounce unfamiliar words.

When the textphone user has finished typing they will type GA to let the operator know to tell you it is your turn again. When it is your turn the operator will be typing what you say to the textphone user, they are not verbatim typists so speaking slowly and clearly will be helpful.

See my my post about TextRelay modes for more information.

Textphone user is speaking for themselves (VCO)

If the response is spoken, this is a mode called Voice Carry Over (VCO) you will hear the caller as you usually would, but you cannot interrupt or speak until the operator tells you that it is your turn.

It will take 1-2 seconds of apparent silence to switch from the textphone user speaking back to your turn as the relay operator is switched in and out of the call.

The Textphone user does not have the option to hear you speaking - this will change with BT's Next Generation Text Relay due to go live in April 2014!

Textphone user speaks for themselves (for speech impaired users)

Speech impaired people may use the Hearing Carry Over (HCO) mode of TextRelay where they speak for themselves and type their responses for the Relay Operator to speak to you.

In this case the operator will speak for the speech impaired person but your spoken responses will go directly to them to hear as usual.

I don't know much about HCO mode or HCO users. There is also not much about it on TextRelay's website.

I opened a bank account with the bank whose logo looks like a steaming turd. Their service can't be any worse than NatWest and they're open till 6 on my working days on my way home from work so I can do face to face banking like cashing cheques easily.

I had already called in and asked what I needed to open the account and was told just a passport. I chucked in a rent invoice, credit card statement and payslip just in case. I did just need the passport but could get the agent to copy things like my address from the paper rather than trying to read it out.

The agent was very pleasant but it was interesting seeing what assumptions she made about me. I said straight away I was a staff member and not a student (I don't think I pass as a student much these days anyway).

She asked what my title was suggesting Miss and Mrs, neither which I use, I'd prefer no title but was too tired to debate trying to go titleless so said "Ms". Later in the process I was asked my living situation and she wrote down single, I said I wasn't single and I was "civilised" and asked what status that was, she said "oh, living with partner"...

Then when filling in the credit checking thing which I presume needs to be accurate she clicked the boxes for "single" so again I said "I'm not legally single, I'm in a civil partnership" at which point she double-taked and said something about me not using the title Mrs. I don't think know a single civilised woman who has changed her title to Mrs...

She happily changed it to married/in civil partnership option the dropdown but it did make me wonder how much presumption there is made by titles or lack thereof and whether my friends are weird in not using Mrs very much and many preferring no title like myself, Ms if they must and sometimes Miss...

I will see if I get stupid calls on my mobile from the bank as I don't think the agent was able to make the mobile the non-preferred contact method. I was wary to give my mobile at all having said I had no landline and that being fine, but she did imply just for texts... If they phone it, I'll simply DPA them to remove the data from their records cos I can't answer it in voice.

The nice thing is for the uni branch only, and probably preferably from my uni email address I can email the agent if I have any questions and usually get a reply within a day which is nice. I wish all banks had email contact tho!

So yeah we'll see if this works smoothly. 7-10 days for bank cards and stuff, two batches of two things for phone and Internet banking in next 2 weeks.