Everything You Wanted to Know About CART Writing - Part 10

By Cheryl Heppner

Editor: The folks at NVRC recently hosted (along with the local HLAA and ALDA chapters) a panel of CART experts to provide the latest information on this crucial technology. Cheryl did her usual outstanding job of writing it up and sharing it with interested folks. Here's her report. You are welcome to share this information, but please be sure to credit NVRC.

This is part ten of eleven parts.

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Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

Part Six

Part Seven

Part Eight

Part Nine

Part Ten

Part Eleven

Attendee:

What does the acronym RPR stand for?

Karen McConnell:

Registered Professional Reporter. There is infornation about it in some handouts I brought with me.

Attendee:

Who is responsible for hiring and paying for the CART writers? Am I assuming correctly that remote CART it would be less expensive than on-site reporting?

Chris Gaskill (Alderson Reporters):

Who's responsible? It would depend on the situation.

Attendee:

For most things, like going to see a doctor, I don't think that an individual is going to hire a CART reporter. For a school, maybe church, or a medical conference, it's the person that's hosting that that's responsible, correct? That falls under the ADA Act, doesn't it?

Karen McConnell (Metro Reporters):

When we do CART in the classroom, the school's responsible for paying us. It's not the parents. When we do a conference, like a medical conference, usually the person who needs the CART will contact the coordinator of the event, and those people in turn call us and they will pay us.

Chris Gaskill:

We've actually had users who want to go to a conference, but the conference for whatever reason has no intention of providing CART. We've been hired by the user on a few situations. As far as responsibility, ideally it would be the person putting on the event. Not everybody is willing to do that, though.

Chuck Motter (VLI):

One other area is that government agencies are covered by Section 508. That mandates that they provide captioning and pay for it. So if we're dealing in the government arena, that's another resource. But the Office of Student Disabilities usually is our pathway to the funding of classroom captioning, or CART.

Most conferences, in fact, now have on their registration form a place for to you identify if you need an accommodation. I have had people with hearing loss come to me and say, "Well, I didn't really think that applied to me. I thought that they were talking about mobility access -- someone in a wheelchair, or someone needing another kind of accommodation." But that applies to people with hearing loss as well. And if you identify that you need the service, then that is the trigger for them to then find us, and they become responsible for the payment of the CART.

Some conferences that are more disability-friendly than others regularly include CART. Where they get the funding, frankly, is right out of your pocket because the registration fee goes up a little bit to cover those things. In the end, our source of funds is the person who hires us.

Lise Hamlin:

If I can add to that, and Chuck alluded to it, many places of public accommodation are required to provide these accommodations under the ADA. Conferences may be covered. Unless a conference is by a private club, chances are it will be required by the ADA. If not the ADA, accommodations like CART for the conference might covered in the Rehab Act, or local law. In Montgomery County, Maryland, for example, we have local law that covers things that are not covered by the ADA. If you go to a house of worship, in most of the country it's not covered by the ADA. In Montgomery County local law covers it as if it was on equal part with the ADA.
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Another scenario, there may be some people who were willing to pay for CART for their own personal needs, but it really depends on the situation. And I would ask the host of the conference first rather than depending on your own resources unless it's really clear they are not required to provide it. Small private clubs, no, but for almost everything else you should be able to get CART covered.

Karen McConnell:

You also asked about whether remote CART was cheaper than on site. The answer is no. It's not cheaper. Sometimes it's more expensive. It just depends on the provider, and the situation. Every situation is different.

Attendee:

I'm sort of looking into the future. I would like to ask if you have visions for this CART technology? I can see it in my home where I have people coming over, my grandchildren, my son, and I have a very hard time, even with the cochlear implant, really getting the essence of what they're saying without them really being in my face. Do you see houses being built for people who are deaf and have these houses fitted to enable that communication?

Karen McConnell:

I would talk to Debbie Jones [NVRC's Resource and Technology Specialist]. I can envision in the future people having houses that are looped so that you can hear everything going on in the house. We've actually had meetings here at NVRC about different ways to make your home more accessible. Some people loop a room, and within that room they can hear everything that's being said by all the people in the room, and it really makes a difference. Talk to Joe Duarte or Debbie Jones, and she can help you with that.

I can't say that I would see CART in every room. There is voice recognition technology and there are some voice writers who say that they provide CART. But to this day I haven't seen any that come near the accuracy that we have. There may be some people out there; I haven't seen any. I've seen about 85%. If I had a day that was 85% accuracy, that would be the worst day of my life. I would quit.

Chuck Motter:

That's a very relevant point. We've talked about 96% accuracy, and 95% accuracy. In reality, I would say that we're 98-99% most days. In fact, a 98% day would be a poor day. So you need to realize that if somebody comes to you and says, "I provide at 90% accuracy," you are not going to be happy with that at all. What Mike is doing on the screen today [by remote CART], and Mike is absolutely one of the best writers in the country, is well over 99%. I personally can't see that screen, but I can tell you I've worked side by side with him, and I know that he doesn't do anything less than 99.9%. He is among the stars of our industry. And this is what you are probably used to and would like to have. If that were to drop to 96% even, you would be throwing vegetables at us up here.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

Part Six

Part Seven

Part Eight

Part Nine

Part Ten

Part Eleven

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