The Signing Math Dictionary (SMD) uses the SigningAvatar accessibility software to provide an illustrated, interactive, three dimensional (3D) sign language dictionary of standards-based mathematics terms for students in grades four through eight who are deaf or hard of hearing.
A speech-to-text service is an accommodation that can be used by a student who is deaf or hard-of-hearing as a way to gain access to spoken or auditory content. With speech-to-text services, a provider listens to a speaker and then produces text for the person who is deaf or hard-of-hearing to read on a computer screen, TV monitor, or projection screen. Speech-to-text service is often called real-time captioning, and the providers are often referred to as captionists or transcribers.
Several resources for ASL signs for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields are available online. They include sign language dictionaries, which are edited collections of signs, as well as sign language forums, which are communities wherein users contribute their own signs for various terms.
Major STEM-related ASL dictionaries and forums include:
Funded by the Department of Education and the National Science Foundation, ClassAct was developed to support instructors and staff who work with deaf and hard of hearing students in all mainstreamed academic environments. ClassAct improves existing teaching practice in mainstream classes by ensuring access to instruction for these students. Resources on the ClassAct website focus on teaching challenges and successful methods as well as helpful communication strategies for the classroom and service units.
Yes, there are funds available specifically for producing captioning. While the U.S. Department of Education is still a major source of caption funding, a good deal of captioning today is made possible by corporate support. Corporate contributions supplement or match those allotted by a program's producer and its distributor (i.e., the broadcast or cable network or syndicator).
Although each situation is different and the student is the best source of information regarding useful accommodations, the following are some accommodations that should help to make the laboratory safer for students who are deaf and the other students in your class as well:
There is often confusion over the terms "hearing impaired," "hard of hearing," "deaf," and "deafened," both in definition and appropriateness of use.
Yes. The TTY (TeleTYpe), TDD (Telecommunications Device for the Deaf), and TT (Text Telephone) acronyms are used interchangeably to refer to any type of text-based telecommunications equipment used by a person who does not have enough functional hearing to understand speech, even with amplification. The person sending a message types it on a small keyboard, and the person receiving the message reads the text on the display. In order for a person to use a text telephone, the individual at the other end of the conversation must also have one, or they must use a relay service.
Although the problems are by no means universal, students who are fluent in American Sign Language (ASL) may sometimes struggle with written English. According to the Oregon Disabilities Commission's website for their Deaf and Hard of Hearing Access Program (DHHAP), ASL is the first language for many ASL users, and English is a nonnative, second language. Because there is no written form of ASL, there are no newspapers, magazines, or books written in ASL.
Yes, captions can be added to a video presentation that has already been published to make it accessible to people who are deaf or hard of hearing.
The first step in adding captions to a video is to transcribe it, or obtain a transcript if one already exists. The second step is to synchronize the transcript with the video. There are various tools and techniques for doing this, depending on the media type.
