CART
Communications Access Real Time (CART) is a
system that provides access to spoken information for people with
hearing loss. The CART system operator generally began as a court
reporter.
CART operators use a court reporting machine to input
spoken text. These machines are quite complex, but they are much faster
than a typewriter because they allow for inputting words a syllable at a
time rather than a word at a time.
CART operators, like real time television captioners,
must be able to input spoken information as fast as a person speaks, and
the better ones are able to keep up with all but the most rapid
speakers.
The output of the court reporting machine is fed to a
computer, which produces a text document that corresponds very closely
to the words used by the speaker. (The CART reporter has some license to
change the words, as long as the resulting message is true to the
original.
Once in the computer, the text can be displayed on a
computer monitor (for one or two users) or projected onto a screen (for
tens, hundreds, or thousands of users.)
CART is a wonderful system for late-deafened people, and
is generally their system of choice.
April 2001 - The intent of many accessibility laws is to
provide a person with a disability with a service that is functionally
equivalent to the service available to a person without disability. It's
not a real clear definition, but one that can provoke considerable
thought and discussion. Here's a VERY interesting article
on that topic by a CART user with NORMAL hearing!
August 2001 - It seems that CART has grown up before our
very eyes. There are still too few reporters and other growing pains,
but the field is well on its way to becoming a profession. Here
is an article by Maureen McGuire and Pete Wacht on finding a good CART
reporter. The
article recently appeared in NVRC News. As always, we appreciate their
permission to share their information with you.
June 2002
- cartinfo.org Aids CART Consumers
February
2003 - I'm really excited about the possibilities of using voice
recognition to do live captioning. Here's a report on the use of
voice
recognition to caption an ALDA meeting.
December 2003
- Here's an interesting article by Shelley Arthur
about similarities and collaboration between CART reporters and ASL
interpreters!
January 2004 - You've probably been
hearing a bit about remote CART. That's the term used to describe a
situation in which a captioner provides captions without being
physically present. Here's
an article on remote CART from the 2003 ALDA conference.
January
2004 - With television and movies increasingly being captioned, surely
our public servants in Washington are providing access to their
proceedings, right? You'd think so, right? Then you
should take a look at this!
March 2006 - You
may be aware of C-Print as an alternative to CART. Demand for C-Print is
skyrocketing at NTID!
June 2007 -
School to fight ruling that student should have CART
December 2007 - Court affirms real-time captioning for
2nd deaf student
April 2008 - Everything you always wanted to know about
CART
April 2008 - Demand for Court Reporters Up; Supply Down
November 2008 - Speech to Text FAQs
November 2008 - Speech to Text Considerations
November 2008 - National Organization Promotes Speech to
Text Services
November 2008 - Comparison of Speech to Text Systems and
Transcripts
February 2009 - New C-Print Provides for Graphics as
Well as Text
June 2009 -
Captioning the HLAA Convention
February 2010 - NCRA Captioning Guidelines
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June 2002
Editor: Hard of hearing and late-deafened people love CART, but I
don't think they have access to it nearly often enough. They often don't
realize that they are entitled to communications access or they find it
just to troublesome to deal with service providers to get CART. Here's
some information on a website that can help. For additional information,
please visit the NCRA Listing
in our Resource Directory.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The demand for CART has grown tremendously in the last few years,
driven primarily by the Americans with Disabilities Act, which
recognizes CART as an assistive technology that affords "effective
communication access." Unfortunately, many times the institutions,
organizations and companies that are required to ensure communication
access for people who are deaf or hard-of-hearing don't understand the
benefits of CART or how to obtain it.
To remedy this situation, NCRA has introduced the Communication
Access Information Center, a Web site that contains
information regarding CART specifically for CART consumers and those who
decide whether or not the service will be provided. Some of the topics
covered include:
+How to locate a CART provider
+What to expect from a CART provider
+The many environments where CART can be put to use
+The benefits of CART resources for obtaining CART in the elementary,
secondary and postsecondary school settings
+Recent legal decisions involving CART
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
January 2004
Editor: I was shocked to see this report that a Senate committee will
launch a pilot program to caption its proceedings, and they might
consider captioning more proceedings if they can afford it. They're just
now thinking about captioning their proceedings? They're not sure they
can afford it? How many gazillion dollars are we spending on pork barrel
projects, corporate welfare, and a host of other dubious expenditures?
Can someone tell me why it's ok for our Federal government to deny
people with hearing loss access to its proceedings? Can someone explain
why everyone with hearing loss isn't up in arms about this? Can someone
please offer some ideas on how we can get universal communications
access to be as readily accepted as universal wheelchair access? Please
do send your thoughts to your obviously frustrated editor.
Here's the announcement.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Senate will begin providing closed captioning for Judiciary
Committee hearings next month, an experimental program that if
successful could eventually be expanded to include other panels.
Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and ranking member Patrick
Leahy (D-Vt.) told other members of the panel of plans to launch the
pilot program last week.
Hatch and Leahy said the panel will use voice recognition technology,
which they said has not yet been used in the Senate and is fairly new in
the marketplace. Maverick Realtime Solutions Inc. has been hired to
institute the pilot program.
Hatch and Leahy did not provide a timeline for the program, but
noted, "Upon completion of the pilot project, a report will be
published by the Secretary of the Senate on the feasibility and cost of
providing closed captioning to all Senate committees."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
June 2007
Samantha Solorano, a deaf sophomore at Glendora High
School, cried tears of joy after she and her family won a lawsuit against
her school requiring it to provide her with a real-time transcription of
her classes. Then, June 7, the school appealed. In court documents, the
district called having a court reporter transcribe classes an "extreme
solution" that could intimidate other students.
Full
Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
November 2008
What is speech-to-text
Speech-to-text services deliver spoken information
such as lectures, presentations, and classes as text on a computer screen
in real time or as printed documents. Speech-to-text service is an
appropriate accommodation for individuals who are comfortable receiving
information via text.
Speech-to-text services often are used for
students or others who do not use sign language interpreters or when
course content has vocabulary more easily presented in print(e.g. foreign
languages, medical courses).
What is the difference between CART, C-Print(r),
and TypeWell(r)?
CART (Communication Access Real-time Translation),
C-Print(r), and TypeWell(r) are different systems for delivering
speech-to-text services.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
November 2008
Learn about the different kinds of speech-to-text
services available, their similarities and differences, legal aspects
related to students' rights to communication access, and more. Find out
how to assess what services students may need, how remote speech-to-text
works, and how to provide hard copy of classroom lectures.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
November 2008
A national organization has been created to meet the
growing needs of those providing and needing speech-to-text services. Meet
STSN president Shannon Aylesworth and learn about how STSN can help you.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
November 2008
View a chart describing equipment, training, and
verbosity (pages/hour) for four different types of Speech-to-Text
Systems-CART, C-Print(r), TypeWell(tm), and Speech Recognition. See how
one speech gets translated three different ways by viewing an excerpt
prepared using verbatim and meaning-for-meaning speech-to-text systems.
Which one could work for you?
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
February 2010
The purpose of this publication is to serve as a
reference source for recommended style and formatting guidelines for
realtime captioners in the United States of America. The material found in
this manual is the product of the National Court Reporters Association (NCRA)
Captioning Community of Interest (COI). The goal of this manual is to
assist the independent realtime captioner by identifying and providing,
through example, captioning style and formatting guidelines to create a
more homogeneous product for the caption-viewing audiences in the United
States. This manual will only address "realtime" broadcast captioners,
both steno and voice, and does not apply to "offline" or "post-production"
captioning. Although "realtime" and "offline" captioners do share many of
the same concerns and style dilemmas, this manual will only address
concerns specific to realtime captioning. For individuals interested in
style and format recommendations for "offline" captioning, please refer to
the Caption Key document created by the Captioned Media Program (CMP) of
the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) with funds for publication
provided by the Office of Special Education Programs, U.S. Department of
Education.
Complete Guidelines
