Hearing Loss LIVE! Workshop Accommodations; Behind the Scenes

Have you ever wondered what Assisstive Listening Device would work best for your church meeting. Do you know how live captioners prepare before that large convention to give you flawless captions?

Don't check the boxes. Do the leg work and let's get together for better inclusion for all hard of hearing.

Join us today for these live workshops the first Tuesday of every month so you can get in the KNOW! 

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Transcript

Hearing Loss LIVE! Workshop series Accommodations Behind the Scenes. 

Julia: Good morning and welcome to Hearing Loss LIVE! This workshop is about accommodations. We've done a couple already we've done CART, we've talked ALDs with Listen Tech, CART with Vicki Turner. Hopefully you've gone back to some of those. We've done one on requesting CART and captioning. We decided let's give you a look behind the scenes. People often think, for me in my industry, request CART, we show up we do the job right. And not just the consumers, I think venues also think we that's what we do. Just give us a call two days before and we're going to come with all of our equipment, and we're going to know everything. The truth is, the more knowledge you have on what we need to give you the best outcome is very knowledgeable. Whether you're a very upfront person who wants to handover a list that says I want CART for this event. Here's the information about what CART is, how it can be used in your venue, your corporate meeting, whatever, sports events. Or you're that person who just wants to ask, okay, maybe you don't want to provide a list. And I think that's okay, because some people just asking is so hard. So you've asked, but you can know what it is we do. Same thing about assistive listening devices. Recently, Chelle's had to listen to me complain a whole lot about saying "they're just checking boxes, just checking boxes." And I think she'll kind of explain what that means a little clearer. Venues have a habit of checking the box, so that they are in compliance with Americans with Disability Act. Not just with hearing loss, but all disabilities and sometimes it gets lost, that the disability looks different for everybody. And hearing loss is a huge pool of it looks different for everybody. Because even when you have the same type of hearing loss, it may look different. The sounds for you look different. How the hearing aids work look different. What works with your hearing loss looks different. And so I think venues and companies become overwhelmed. And the truth is it's very simple to incorporate the needs of every type of hearing loss and whatever that looks like, right. So I'm going to talk a little behind the scenes of what CART looks like and hopefully you made it to our Let's Talk Tuesday, that was last week, where we had a special guest come talk to you about how to have really great captions. Chelle, I want you to talk about assistive listening devices and what folks can do to help themselves when it comes to those. Because I think a LDS again, work differently for everybody, right.

Chelle: One size does not fit all. And there's a preference among all of us. And this came to a head for me not long ago, I requested assistive listening and a whole bunch of it got dropped on the table. Options. Yes, yes, we have it all, but it was like nobody understood it. And what one person will prefer this and it'll work great, but another person will want this system. And this system actually needs to be plugged into the audio system. It's not portable. There are a portable assistive listening systems that you can buy. And so there's there's all these things behind the scenes that need to be decided before you buy it and check that box. Because one size does not fit all. We always say that. There's so many different preferences in the hard of hearing community. I like assistive listening. I have played probably with as much assistive listening as I can get my hands on. Ewww! that's a new system, I want to try that out! We once had the Roger educational system, I forget the name of it. Now I will have to put that in a box on the side later. But we were at the SayWhatClub and they had the Phonak Roger, big thing that shoots out to the audience and I was like, "I want to try it." I have Phonak hearing aids. "So Can Can you- How do I hook you up to this?" And they were like, "I don't know." So at that point, it was just being a speaker for the convention. But I'm, I'm pretty brave when it comes to assistive listening, and I want to try it all. I want to be able to tell people how it's working. I, like I said, I've played with everything I got my hands on. And that means I'm fairly knowledgeable about assistive listening. So I can walk in somewhere and go, Oh, that'll work if. If you do this, and this, and get blank looks, and this one is a great system, but it needs to be plugged in.over here. What you need is a portable system. "But we have, all this." "Well, sorry." None of it ended up working. And they had a good, they had a good heart. Like they wanted to provide that assistive listening. But what they had was systems people preferred in the past, or what worked for them, but it wasn't a good overall fit for the environment. So I would like to propose behind the scenes before you buy in any venue or classroom or lecture hall, or whatever it is, before they purchase an assistive listening system, I would check with-- check a lot of boxes, you'll see them on the blog, there are several boxes to look at. And Listen Tech has a a tool now that will help you decide. But also reach into the hard of hearing community and see what they want. Most people will not understand the differences between the assistive listening systems, they may not even know they're there, because there's not prominent signage and instructions on how to use it. But reach into the community, the hard of hearing community, wherever you are, there will be at least a couple of people who understand it, and can guide you to a wiser decision. So and the other thing that pops into my mind here is nothing about us without us. That's a disability community outcry. And it's kind of the same way with hard of hearing people. Reach out to us find out what we want. If you're all hearing people you really have, as is much as you mean well, you really have no idea what what really works and how it works. So reach out to the hard of hearing community.

Julia: One thing I think you can do as a consumer, when you go in and you request that ALD and you use it give feedback, was it charged? Did the people giving it to you know, know anything about it? Or did it work for you? And then send a letter thanking them, you know that they even have one. But if you ever look at upgrading or changing out or could you know, have some information for them that, especially if you've been a place where certain things work and certain things don't. Now mind you, also behind the scenes is knowing what's-- there still metal and interference with buildings, there's certain things in certain venues that are out of everybody's control. And we can't help that right. I mean, none of us can help that. Well. Builders could use better building supplies, but whatever. I guess I'm getting that there's going to be something that's going to happen in certain venues and you're going to have to decide, is this just a venue I can't use at all or or what can be changed. And actually some of the change could be adding a caption access to that venue. That's maybe not dependent on how good the internet's working, how good the metal interference is going to be with the system. I think venues, absolutely need to stop checking boxes, and need to have clear information. And they need to document and leave the document for the person who comes behind them. Right? Have the information necessary for a better outcome is what comes to my mind. And keep a running list yourself what works where you like it? What did you do you know? How can you research it, if that makes sense? I kind of mentioned that people think captioners just kind of show up and do their thing, right. But it's really good for you to know what happens behind the scenes on the event that you're asking to have CART, or captions. We've talked about college accommodations and how we've had students who didn't even know captioning existed, or that they could request it until they've gotten to college. And some have really great success and some, it's too much. And that's okay. This is where we're consumer driven. Even though the venue is hiring us, our job is to hopefully get the consumer the same information somebody without a hearing loss isn't getting from the conference, the sports event, the graduation, the class, the meeting, whatever it looks like, the play, the musical. That's kind of our goal. But it's not just show up and type. For a best case scenario, I have access to the meeting information as early as possible. PowerPoints, scripts, run of show, which those of us working in sports, and with venues kind of understand what run of show means. Surnames very important. Do you want me to document who's talking? If you do, I've got to have their names so I can make a brief? What's happening at halftime? Are you going to celebrate somebody? Is it just a fun run? Is it you know, knowing that information. I attended a meeting recently, where somebody really had great insight on all the things we need behind the scene. But it caused a lot of stress to the employers who were on this conference. And they thought, Wow, that's a lot to do. Really, it's not. Mostly, if you can get me even if it's going to change 10 minutes before the performance or the meeting. That's okay. Getting me enough information on what the subject is, is helpful so that I can make sure things you guys might talk about at it are coming up fairly clear, if possible. But the most important thing I have found in the last year is venues need to get us with the tech guy or girl. Let us have access with the tech group. Because they're the ones that are going to know how we're going to get the captions. Is it over a PowerPoint? Is it on a wall? Is it an LED screen? Is it on people's smartphones? There's a lot of that. So the best part about a venue hiring me is getting me and one whoever's going to have all the information for whatever it is we're doing, and two the tech person as soon as possible. It's kinda that simple. I'm trying to make it simple, because I want you as a consumer to be armed with what should be happening behind the scenes. So that if the venue has a question on will this work for you? You can say oh, yeah, yeah, just just captions on my phone is perfect. That's all I need. We can stream it in the room. Captions over the PowerPoint. Yeah, that's awesome. That Yeah, that'll be great.

And I don't know if I'm getting my point across, but venues sometimes do things like we offer captioning for everything, because that's part of our decision in in our inclusion. But then when it gets difficult, they don't necessarily know what to do. And that's where they can work with us more on what needs to be done. But if you know you're going to be going to a conference, and it's going to be about veterinary medicine, you can be aware of, you know, I'm going to attend this, this and this, so that the venue can get me as much information about what it is in the pro-- you know, give me the program that you're printing, I can research what the subject is going to be about. Better, the options are that most of the terminology is going to come up because I do not have a degree in veterinary medicine. And I actually have never had a student in veterinary medicine. So you know that that's going to be very time consuming for me to look everything up. When there's like 20 Different options a day. So I'm going to have the basics. But you can always ask, is there somebody who is experienced or trained in this? Use people like Global Alliances, who have different, you know, different lists for people who specialize in different things, and they can help you maybe find somebody who might be a better fit. Know, all your options. Do you have anybody locally who can be in-person, even if you're doing it remote in-person, I prefer it. I'm there, if the internet goes down, I'm there if there's, you know, a problem, whatever. But that may not be an option. It's not always an option. So, you know, can you give the tech people a day before to run all the tests and an hour before? You know all of that stuff? I don't know if it's any cohesive. But what are a thought or a question  when it comes to asking venues for captions, that you have, Chelle?

Chelle: Well, immediately, what comes to mind is going to hearing loss conventions. They want your slides ahead of time. And they want you to leave so much, typically at the top of the slide, so that they can run the captions. And the slide in your eyes are right on. But I know this doesn't get done half the time. But I'm very cautious if I'm attending a hearing loss convention, all three of them, they do want this and leaving that space at the top. They don't do at the bottom because sometimes you can't see the captions over the heads of everybody else in there so they put it at the top. But I'm surprised at how many people don't know, who give hard of hearing presentations do not leave that space with the captions. And even I once screwed up and brought the wrong slide. Like I did it all up. And then I redid it again, and put all the necessary stuff on it. But I brought the wrong one on my thumb drive. So I was hurriedly before doing the presentation, I was lowering everything. And thank goodness I keep my slide numbers because that would have been. So that that's one thing for being assessable for a while be what I can do for accommodations behind the scenes. And while Julia was talking about sharing how the captions work, or she said, let people know what worked, what didn't when you when you turn it in and you want to make sure you share the good too and the bad. Like a lot of times I've just had nothing but praise for people because they did it right. And they want to know that they like hearing it. Like I was I was thinking how we could make it more cursor in like a teacher type setting. Like, there, if you're comfortable, you can share how the CART worked during the class and what didn't work. Like, oh, well, you know this, this was really good. But this part, the technical terms was really hard for me because, you know, like Julia does not know veterinary medicine, how can she know? So if you could get the lesson to her prior-- to my captioning person, prior to the lesson, then I will have the correct terms and all the information I need. And I'm not struggling to find out, research it on my own after the class on top of everything else I have to do. So those are just a couple of things that I thought of. And the other one is, is that we do have our monthly Talk about a Tuesday workshop. And I see Julia, share our information with the people who come into the captioning for the workshop so that they can see what comes up. Another thing people don't know is that CART providers build their dictionary on their own, it's not handed to them. So I have seen Julia adding things into her dictionary over all these years, and she still, she can't possibly have everything. So all the help she gets makes it a better outcome.

Julia: Thank you. That's a good one about professors, because I think I wrote some information in notes. Professors get very nervous. Why do why does this contractor want my, my work, which just tells you somebody has probably stolen their work in the past, so they get a little they get a little worried about their work getting out there to strangers. For those who who don't know, both, venue or consumers, we have ethics, we have ethical guidelines. If a professor shares a PowerPoint with me, I use it for the class. And then I don't save it to anything I have. I don't share it with others, I don't even share it with students. Some professors don't want their students to have their slides before class, because then they don't come to class. Again, another problem. So they, they need to trust that I'm not going to share with my client or consumer. But if I have access beforehand, it's going to have, it's going to be a much better experience for everyone and look better. And I do I have a lot of different dictionaries. And there are times that words come up. And I'm like, why is it doing that? And sometimes it's the computer deciding, oh, I think this is what you're trying to type. And it's usually quite wrong. And so we do have a lot of different things that can happen. And sometimes it makes it funny. If it's happening, almost every sentence, there's a problem. I'm -- that captioner may be in over their head. And they need to know that they need to maybe change and it's happened I've been in over my head. And I've had to tell the consumer because there was nobody else available. This is what I know. And this is what I was given and they were like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, we're gonna fix that right now. So they will they will come to your you know, consumers have come to my, you know, support or this week in class, I couldn't get an acronym to come up from its PLAFP. I'm like, I can't get it to come out. Right. And finally, the students like wrote it on her paper for me. And I'm like, Yeah, I got it right, but it won't come out with machine right. She's like, I already know what it is. Don't worry about it. You know, and so I changed it a couple different ways so that the rest of the year it'll come up correctly. I still don't know what it stands for. And I didn't ask but it just it helps us have a better outcome overall. It's also I don't know- something else I wanted but we really are at 25 minutes, so I might write it in the blog or make a short about it. We hope you're joining us for our Let's Talk Tuesdays. I do not have my calendar down. But our next one is in October it will be October 3rd. Chelle do you know what we're talking about? Because I can't remember. Is limitations?

Chelle: Give just a second here I have it pulled up it is Hearing Loss

Limits. 

Julia: hearing loss limits. We hope you're enjoying our workshop series. We have two more left for the year after this. So please join us if if you can look for our next round of classes coming out. I want to say we'll post them in November. So keep that on your thought process for Lipreading Concepts Lip Shapes, both the advanced and the basics. We'll be having their winter sessions soon. I hope you are subscribing to all of our stuff. Our newsletters, our YouTube channels are BuzzSprout. And if you can, hey, buy us a cup of coffee and tell us what you think. Talk to you

soon. Bye 

Chelle: bye