What matters deafness of the ears, when the mind hears?

At last, I have a chance to use this word - hiatus! Ha!

Sorry for the long silence (and no pun intended), have been bogged down in quicksand.

Highlights of the past week included hosting CT - an terp from Malaysia on her first visit to my fair isle. Of course, the bulk of the work of hosting, tour guiding and all went to DO. :)

In other news, Giraffe has gone through his CI operation successfully and is now slacking recovering at home. Congrats, man!

More (coherency) when I am more slack and less tired.

Cheers!

A voice to text service for the HI and deaf (who uses voice) in the UK. Sounds cool!

The call is connected by a Typetalk operator so that the hard of hearing person is able to use their own voice but the other person’s responses are typed and presented as text on the ScreenPhone’s display.

Read on…

I think I will take the trouble and expense to buy this book online (let me check if it’s available from Amazon).

I think I am going to cry.

That 12-year-old kid - it’s me!!

In every part about the struggle to hear, to understand, the pretence, the failure to hear and understand, all that matters.

There was this one kid, about twelve years old, who stood out entirely. The topic of our discussion was how we, as deaf and hard of hearing individuals, handled large family events. More specifically, what do we do when totally lost in a room full of chattering, hearing relatives?

“I say hello,” this kid said. “And then run!”

I asked him what he meant by “run.” He explained that he would approach his relatives on a one-by-one basis, engage in some superficial conversation, and then make a hasty retreat before the conversation evolved beyond “How are you,” “How’s the family,” and “How’s school.” Unbeknownst to virtually everyone, this kid was manipulating each and every conversation!

He was an expert at lip-reading superficial conversation because he knew what to look for. But he also knew that if anyone changed the subject, he would have been like a deer frozen in the headlights. So he took control, mastered the art of how-do-ya-do, and moved on as quickly as possible.

“Isn’t that exhausting?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he admitted, with several other hard of hearing kids nodding affirmatively. “Sometimes I sneak out and go to my room to play Nintendo for a while.”

Gerard, a friend of mine, is undergoing a CI operation tomorrow.

Here’s wishing him success and Godspeed!

I await his (lab rat) progress reports as well. :)

Banjo, who I have featured and linked before, has an articulate, clear-headed take on his Deaf identity and why he sticks to it despite ‘common sense’.

I don’t expect everybody to understand why some of us choose to remain deaf. We are given choices, and we made them. I’ve already adapted to being a deaf person, and I don’t plan on changing that. If there’s a pill that cures deafness, I would be hesitant to take it because I’ve already been deaf my whole life. To think of not being deaf is just hard for me to imagine. It is a life-changing experience and it may radically change my personality and my identity.

There is a movie that makes a good example of what I’m saying here, it’s called ‘At First Sight’ starring Val Klimer. He portrays a blind man who is operated on to have his eyesight restored. Later into the movie, he begins to resent his ability to see and went back to being blind as a comfort. Mainly, because blindness is what he identifies with. Just like I identify myself with deafness.

P/s: Do read the comments following his blog post too. Interesting discussion going on.

Turmoil, protests, arrests in America’s (and the world’s) only deaf university. Another historical moment a la the "1988 Deaf President Now" revolution?

From afar, I can only watch and hope for the best.

On May 1, 2006, Celia May Baldwin, the chairperson of Board of Trustees announced the 9th president of Gallaudet University to be Dr. Jane Fernandes. During the announcement, an uproar erupted from the audience protesting the selection.

For several days, students established Tent City on the Gallaudet grounds protesting the selection. However when the school came to an end, the students had to close down the Tent City.

An interesting read, to put it mildly.

Oh, you ask - after reading the essay - what are my views? Erm, well, ah, see, I reserve comment. No girl has ever picked up sign language because of me anyway. (Alas! And.. oink!)

Why am I annoyed with hearing members of my own gender, you ask? Simple. Every time a deaf guy I know dates or marries a hearing woman, 90 percent of the time that woman signs. Even if the guy has exceptional speech and residual hearing, the woman still goes out of her way to learn sign language.

But when a deaf girl finds a hearing boyfriend, sheeesh. It’s a totally different story.

OK, shameless plug.. not! Anyone has any experience with the device? Comments and feedback welcome!

P/S: Note I am a moderator of the forum linked below. (Not that I do much scolding, lecturing, banning and other hoity-toity stuff moderators are supposed to do. Just don’t have the chance to. Darn.) 

Tried this amazing assistive listening device. Works wonders for speech and telephone communication. Simple, affordable (less than SGD400), & practical. It’s a personal amplifier that allows you to adjust the tone & volume of the sound coming in so that it suits your hearing. You can use the bundled headsets over an ITC HA, or use an optional neckloop with a T-coil enabled BTE. 

Read on…

A late-deafened journalist’s inspiring story of how he adapted to his hearing loss. Ok, you may say, another one? But hey, there is no such thing as an oversupply of inspiring tales, so enjoy!

For the past 30 years Chris Peters has been slowly losing his ability to hear the world around him – the voices of his family, his workmates and the general soundscape of daily life. Noises that he used to pick up – the radio, the timer on the oven or a public announcement at the train station – have faded away.

Read on…

(Thanks to Gerard - once again - for the link.) 

Singapore Librarians for Empowerment & Advocacy for the Disabled (sgLEAD) has a neat demo on how close captioning helps even the hearing too.

The Closed Captioning feature in Google Video will be a boon to those who are Deaf or Hearing Impaired, especially when services like Google Video and other similar video-sharing platforms are gaining popularity. To appreciate why features like Closed Captioning are important to a person with hearing-impairment, try this experiment:

Read on…

Learn more about sgLead here.

P/S: I so love libraries! Along with being a zookeeper, being a librarian is one of my unfulfilled childhood ambitions. :)

Updates on subtitling for news on TV in Singapore. It’s now officially confirmed, and will start from 2 Oct. Yay!!! 

MediaCorp rolls out real-time subtitling for news bulletins

By Julia Ng, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 27 September 2006 1717 hrs 

SINGAPORE : MediaCorp will be introducing real-time subtitling, starting with Channel 5’s English news bulletins from next Monday. This will be followed by Chinese news at 10pm on Channel 8, and Suria’s 8pm Malay news bulletins in December. The service is supported by the Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA). MediaCorp and MDA are still exploring ‘live’ subtitling for Tamil news on Vasantham Central.

Wong Siew Leng, who is deaf, is curious about things happening around her. To keep informed, she watches the news bulletins on MediaCorp’s Channels 5 and U. It is a bit of guesswork and she often needs someone to interpret the news to her through sign language. But from October 2, following the latest news on television will be a totally new experience for people like her.

MediaCorp is rolling out real-time subtitling, starting with the Channel 5 9.30pm news bulletin - which is also simulcast on TV Mobile. Speaking through an interpreter, Siew Leng said, "With captions, I can understand the news, the sentences…it’s better. Sometimes I don’t understand. I watch the TV Mobile on the bus. When I’m on the bus, I watch the captions on the TV Mobile…it’s much better. With the improvement of captioning, more and more people will understand better."

Mrs Jenny Ho, Executive Director, The Singapore Association for the Deaf, said, "With subtitling, the deaf can get simultaneous information from the news themselves and they don’t have to rely on interpretation of their hearing peers. They could be more independent and contributing members of the society." The Singapore Association for the Deaf has always been advocating TV news subtitling. But it won’t just benefit its 5,400 registered members. The Association says old age-related deafness will increase as the Singapore population ages rapidly.

Denise Phua, President, Autism Resource Centre, said, "This initiative will benefit not only the hearing impaired but also the elderly and the autism community, most of whom are visual learners. And even the rest of us. Because research has shown that more than 60 percent of us are visual learners."

Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports, and Second Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts, said, "For a long long while, people with hearing disabilities have been appealing that they want (subtitling), in order to feel more integrated with society, they also need to be able to get information in a timely (manner). "There were always two possibilities - one was whether to do sign language or subtitling. I think the choice to do subtitling is very apt. (The) more important point…is that we’re prepared to go the extra mile to make Singapore a more inclusive and integrated place for people with disabilities. So all these are positive steps in the right direction."

Rosmawati Sulaiman, Executive Editor, English News Output, MediaCorp News, said, "It’s been an exciting time for the editorial and production teams, fitting a new element into the show. But it is also very challenging as it entails us taking a different approach to telling a story. "It’s more than just putting the script on air while the story is being told. It’s about making sure what is displayed makes sense to the viewer. Interviews, for example, need to be transcribed, but at the same time, they have to be cleaned up for grammar to make sure they can be understood by the viewer. And not everything can be transcribed. We often cut to an event or speak to a reporter on location ‘live’. These cannot be subtitled. Then there are the late, breaking stories containing off-the cuff speeches. These too will not be subtitled."

MediaCorp says it welcomes public feedback on the service to help improve the system. - CNA/ms