Volume 26 Issue 6

HOH-LD-News
Vol. 26, Issue 6
February 4, 2006

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Table of Contents
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- Article 1: TV Closed Captioning: the First 25 Years & the Future - Part 2

- Article 2: Why Screaming Doesn't Make You Deaf

- Article 3: Read Captions Across America

- Article 4: Short Takes

Our advertisers make it possible for us to provide HOH-LD-News as a free service. Please let them know you appreciate their support, and please mention that you saw their message in HOH-LD-News.

- Advertisers in this Issue
First Premium Placement:
Sound Clarity Hearing Batteries and ALDs
Second Premium Placement:
New Phone and Free Shipping Offer at Harris Communications
Third Premium Placement:
IHHD Online Educational Opportunities
Fourth Premium Placement:
"In The News" - HLW Provides Ongoing Hearing Loss News Coverage
Classified Section:
One Smoke Alarm
One Online Store
Two Employment Opportunities

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Contact information and disclaimers are at the end of this newsletter.
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- Article 1: TV Closed Captioning: the First 25 Years & the Future - Part 2
By Cheryl Heppner
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Editor: It seems hard to believe that television captions are only 25 years old! Television was pretty much inaccessible to people with hearing loss before that time. Jeff Hutchins, the Chairman of the Accessible Media Industry Coalition, provided a wonderful review of captioning history at the 2005 TDI convention. Cheryl Heppner of NVRC did her usual great job of capturing his presentation.

This article is presented in two parts. This is part two.

If you want to share this information, be sure to credit NVRC. Attribution information is at the end of the article

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- During the first 7-8 years of closed captioning, there was no big breakthrough. Then Congress received the report by the Commission on Education of the Deaf, which was chaired by Dr. Frank Bowe. The report had two recommendations related to captioning. It called for decoders to be built into television sets and for closed captioning to be mandated.

- In 1990, the decoder chip bill passed in Congress, requiring that as of July 1, 1993 all TV sets with screens 13 inches or larger must have built-in captioning capability. The bill was passed over the objections of some in the TV manufacturing industry who claimed it would add $5-$10 more to the cost of the television. Jeff talked privately with some manufacturers he knew who viewed the bill as an opportunity, including Mitsubishi and Zenith. These manufacturers knew that the bill could enable them to have a computer in every television set, but they could not be competitive in doing this unless all others were required to do it too.

- The passage of the bill gave a bridge between analog and digital television. There were worries about the need for standardization with specifics for the decoders. The Electronics Industry Association set up a subcommittee to develop the standards.

- With built-in decoders, captioning continued to grow, but not as rapidly as people hoped. The decoders did not spur broadcasters to voluntarily caption more programs. The breakthrough that brought us the rapid increase in captioning of the past few years came with the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was given responsibility to oversee the Act's requirements for closed captioning. In 1998 the FCC's regulations went into effect. As a result, in January 1, 2006 we will see 100% captioning of all TV programs that were not given exemptions. In 2008, 75% of pre-rule programming must be captioned (pre-rule means programs which were first broadcast prior to 1998).

- The FCC mandate spurred demand for more and more captioning. It also spurred the request for more DVD captioning, although captioning of DVDs and videos is not mandated by the FCC. A lot of new companies sprang up to provide captioning; others crashed and burned. Even today we lack enough qualified people to do captioning work, especially live captioning.

- The crux of the problem is that over time, as costs for captioners have gone up, revenue has gone down. Really good captioners have started to demand higher pay while broadcasters have pressured captioning companies to charge less. Broadcasters have played companies against each other to get the cheapest deal. The result has been a decline in quality.

- Sponsorship of captioning also became an issue. At one time, a great deal of captioning was done by funding from the Department of Education. Then Congress said that since captioning was required by law, taxpayers should not be required to pay for it.

- On September 11, 2001, captioning of news programs continued for 100 consecutive hours with no breaks. Captioning companies had to stay in touch and cooperate to keep the captioning going. After it was over, the captioning companies became determined to solve the problems they were up against. The result was a Caption Quality Initiative conference in 2002, held in the Washington, DC area. Consumers and caption industry representatives met to talk about many issues. This led to Jeff's starting the Accessible Media Industry Coalition (AMIC) in 2003.

- The growing problems with caption quality also led TDI to submit a petition for rulemaking on caption quality to the Federal Communications Commission in 2004. The FCC had originally said that it felt the marketplace would take care of quality, but failed to define what the word 'quality' meant.

- What's next? Technology is changing with the move to high definition television (HDTV). The digital TV standards for closed captioning have turned into something of an albatross due to compromises. We will have the ability for larger font sizes, but in such a convoluted way that people are not likely to use the feature. Latency - the lag time between the spoken word and the time we see the captioned word - has also increased with DTV. We are probably stuck with the old technology.

- Jeff believes that the FCC will set quality specifics, and hopes this will happen soon. He thinks the industry will exceed the requirement for 75% captioning of pre-rule programs. He also thinks sponsorships will grow more, due to the cost of captioning. Some larger broadcasters already budget for captioning as a production cost.

- Jeff expects the industry will undergo some consolidation. He guesses that we won't see speech recognition used directly for captioning for another 10 years.

- Most DVDs are now captioned, but the special features are not. Jeff challenged consumers to speak up and demand that the industry caption everything on a DVD.

- In the beginning of captioning, Jeff and others never predicted what it would become in size and scope. Many pioneers helped to get us where we are today - Dr. Norwood, Julius Barnathan, Curzan, Vera Wells of NBC, Williams of NBC, Mark Turits of CBS. Marty Block gave up a lucrative court reporting career to bring us the first realtime captioning.

- When he was an owner of VITAC, a captioning company, Jeff would convince potential clients of the value of captioning and they'd say, "We want to do this; let us know when you find a way to pay for it." No one questions that there is an audience for captioning now; it's a given.

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(c)2005 by Northern Virginia Resource Center for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Persons (NVRC), www.nvrc.org. When sharing this information, please ensure credit is given to NVRC

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- Article 2: Why Screaming Doesn't Make You Deaf
By Ker Than, LiveScience Staff Writer
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Editor: Why doesn't screaming make you deaf? First of all, is it true that your own screaming doesn't damage your hearing? If not, why not? Is this related to the fact that you can't tickle yourself? Read on for answers to these and other fascinating questions?

This article was originally published 1/26/06 on LiveScience.com is reprinted with permission from Imaginova(r) Corp

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As you scream for your favorite sports team, special brain cells kick in to protect your auditory system from the sound of your own voice, a new study suggests.

These cells dampen your auditory neurons' ability to detect incoming sounds. The moment you shut up, the inhibition signal stops and your hearing returns to normal, so you can then be deafened by the screams of the guy next to you.

Scientists call this signal a corollary discharge. In crickets, on which the study was done, it's sent from the motor neurons responsible for generating loud mating calls to sensory neurons involved in hearing. The signal is sent via middlemen called interneurons.

Biologists have long known that corollary discharge interneurons, or CDIs, must exist. Only in recent years, however, have they started finding them. The new cricket study is the first to pinpoint CDIs for the auditory system.

Listen to me

Animals generate sounds to communicate, to attract mates, and to ward off rivals. Some animals, like dolphins and bats, even hunt with sounds.

CDIs help resolve two problems that sound-generating animals have. They protect creatures from their own sounds, and they allow animals to distinguish between sounds that they've created and ones from outside sources.

"It's difficult to say whether crickets can distinguish between self-generated and external sounds, but a similar mechanism in humans might explain how we can recognize our own voice," study leader James Poulet from the University of Cambridge told LiveScience.

Scientists haven't yet identified CDIs in humans but imaging studies have shown that auditory areas in our brains are suppressed during speech.

More to it

In addition to CDIs, humans have a so-called "middle ear reflex" that also helps to protect our hearing from loud sounds. Two tiny muscles are attached to bones in the middle part of our ears. When we're exposed to sudden loud noises, these muscles contract and make our auditory systems less responsive to incoming sounds.

Unlike corollary discharges, the middle ear reflex dampens hearing only in response to external sounds. Also, because it is only a reflex, the response becomes less vigorous with repetition and long exposure.

CDIs are not unique to the auditory system. In monkeys, visual CDIs help keep the visual scene stable even as the eyes move around rapidly. Scientists suspect CDIs exist for other sensory systems as well, including touch.

This could help explain why we can't tickle ourselves.

"The corollary discharge is not present when someone else tickles us," Poulet explained. "Therefore the sensory response in the brain is much greater and the tickle appears much more ticklish."

Another recent study found that the brain can anticipate your effort to tickle yourself, and it discounts the sensation.

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- Article 3: Read Captions Across America
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Editor: Those who are not familiar with the Captioned Media Program should take a minute to check it out at http://www.captionedmedia.org . They have an amazingly broad collection of captioned videos that you can borrow free of charge! And they even pay the postage both ways!

They're partnering with the National Education Association to encourage captioning as an aid to promoting literacy. I applaud partnerships of this type, because they are a natural way to educate the general public about hearing loss issues and resolutions. Promoting literacy is pretty cool too. ;-)

Here are portions of the press release.

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The National Association of the Deaf (NAD) is launching its first-ever "Read Captions Across America" nationwide as a part of "Read Across America" on March 2. "Read Across America" is the nation's largest reading celebration, sponsored by the 2.7 million-member National Education Association (NEA), and focuses the country's attention on motivating children to read in addition to helping them master basic skills. "Read Captions Across America" is the first national reading event that puts emphasis on the importance of captioned media (DVD, video, CD-ROM, and Internet streaming) as a reading tool for children with or without a hearing loss.

The NAD's U.S. Department of Education funded Captioned Media Program (CMP) is organizing and promoting "Read Captions Across America," and is loaning captioned media for the event as well. The CMP project director Bill Stark remarks that:

"Captions are a wonderful source of readily available reading material. They can turn television or computers into a moving story book, with a steady stream of written language presented with both video and audio reinforcement. Viewers can see words on the screen, hear them spoken, and see them put into a visual context. One of the most exciting potential applications of captioning is its use as an educational tool."

[snip]

About the NAD-The NAD (http://www.nad.org) is the nation's oldest and largest nonprofit organization safeguarding the accessibility and civil rights of 28 million deaf and hard of hearing Americans. The NAD is a dynamic federation of 51 state association affiliates (including the District of Columbia), organizational affiliates, and national members. Primary areas of focus include grassroots advocacy and empowerment, policy development and research, legal assistance, captioned media, information and publications, and youth leadership.

About the CMP-The CMP (http://www.captionedmedia.org) is a nonprofit organization that provides the nation's largest free-loan captioned media library and also acts as a captioning information center, maintaining a database for use by those who are searching for captioned media, captioning agencies, or wanting to learn to caption themselves. The CMP is administered by the NAD, funded by the U.S. Department of Education, and is a "Read Across America" partner.

About the NEA-The NEA (http://www.nea.org) is the nation's largest professional employee organization and is committed to advancing the cause of public education. The NEA's members work at every level of education and have affiliate organizations in every state, as well as in more than 14,000 local communities across the United States. The NEA has sponsored the "Read Across America" program for eight years.

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"In The News" - HLW Provides Ongoing Hearing Loss News Coverage
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Hearing Loss Web (Publisher of HOH-LD-News) is thrilled to announce a new chapter on our website. Called "In the News", this section will keep you current with what's happening in the hearing loss world between weekly issues of HOH-LD-News.

We're using the same editorial discretion about what stories to include on "In the News" as we do for stories to include in HOH-LD-News. So what you'll see are the hearing loss stories that we think are important!

If you like the HOH-LD-News story selection, you'll like the "In the News" story selection.

Don't forget to bookmark:
http://www.hearinglossweb.com/news/curr.htm
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- Article 4: Short Takes
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Editor: As hearing loss becomes more of a mainstream topic we're seeing an increasing amount of press coverage of related issues. We don't have room to run all these stories, but we can pick a few interesting ones, and provide an excerpt and a link to the complete story. We'd sure like to know if you like this idea or not! ;-)

Oh, and if you like this format, you might want to check out the new section of our website that provides stories in this format on an ongoing basis. See
http://www.hearinglossweb.com/news/curr.htm

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Suit claims hearing loss from iPod

An owner of Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod music player filed a federal lawsuit against the computer maker, claiming the device causes hearing loss in people who use it. The portable music players are "inherently defective in design and are not sufficiently adorned with adequate warnings regarding the likelihood of hearing loss," according to the complaint, which seeks class action status. The suit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in San Jose, seeks compensation for plaintiffs' hearing loss and upgrades that will make the iPods safer.

http://makeashorterlink.com/?L1F02649C

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Nurses with Hearing Loss

Exact numbers of nurses with hearing loss remains elusive. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services - Public Health Services (2004) estimates that 28 million people, in the United States, are deaf or hard of hearing. One can only speculate that the number of nurses with some degree of hearing loss mirror the general population. Coupled with this fact, is the reality that nurses are getting older and hearing loss is one of the issues many older people face. Additionally, each year more and more nursing students with hearing loss are being admitted to nursing education programs (Maheady, 2003). But there is good news for nurses with hearing loss. The following resources can help many nurses with hearing loss to continue to practice.

http://makeashorterlink.com/?K6011349C

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Cochlear Implant Timeline

Here's a timeline of inventions and discoveries on the road to today's cochlear implants. The timeline begins in 1800, and continues through 2004.

http://www.drf.org/timeline/cochlear_timeline.htm

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- Classifieds
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One Smoke Alarm, one Online Store, and two Employment Opportunities appear in this issue. (Ads appear after this brief table of contents.)

Smoke Alarm for Hearing Impaired
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WCI - Your Single Source for Assistive Technology
Pocketalker on Sale During February
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Employment Opportunity 1
Various Opportunities
GLAD
Various Southern California Locations

Employment Opportunity 2
Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
Deaf Counseling, Advocacy and Referral Agency (DCARA)
San Leandro, CA

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Employment Opportunity 1
Various Opportunities
GLAD
Various Southern California Locations
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GLAD is an Affirmative Action Employer with equal opportunity for men, women and people with disabilities. For more information on the following positions, please go to: www.gladinc.org. The status of all positions is: Regular, Full-time, Non-Exempt, Full Fringe Benefits unless otherwise noted. All positions are open until filled.

* JOB DEVELOPER/INTERPRETER - Anaheim, Crenshaw, Norwalk

* HARD OF HEARING SPECIALIST - Riverside

* HIV HEALTH EDUCATOR (MSM) - Los Angeles

* GLAD BUILDING/MAINTENANCE MANAGER - Los Angeles

If interested for any of these positions then please submit resume and application to:

Jeff Fetterman
Human Resources Specialist
Greater Los Angeles Agency on Deafness, Inc.
2222 Laverna Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90041
V/TDD: (323) 550-4207
Fax #: (323)550-4204
E-mail: jfetterman@gladinc.org

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Employment Opportunity 2
Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
Deaf Counseling, Advocacy and Referral Agency (DCARA)
San Leandro, CA
-------------------

DCARA is seeking a Chief Executive Officer to build on over 40 years of continuous growth and evolution of the non-profit, community-based social service agency. DCARA serves the Deaf Community in the San Francisco Bay Area and 14 counties in Northern California. The CEO will be responsible for all aspects of the agency's operations, programs, finances, and personnel. To see the full job announcement including information about DCARA, minimum qualifications and application process, visit http://www.dcara.org.

CLOSING DATE: March 31, 2006

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