Hearing Loss LIVE! Podcast

Hearing Loss LIVE! Talks College Disability Resource Services

Hearing Loss LIVE! Season 2 Episode 20

Your headed to college. Here comes grown up life right? 

Yes!

This is the time to learn your hearing loss truth. 

This week we talk about what services you should look into when you start college.

The answer: All of them.

 Though all colleges are different, one thing is the same. They all have a Disability Resource Center. Let your advisor counselor know your needs. This is a great opportunity to prepare yourself for the workforce and let your peers know how to be a better coworker.

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Hearing Loss LIVE! talks college Disability Services.

Julia:

Hello, good morning. Welcome to Hearing Loss LIVE! our, the university I worked with both, both at the community Well, it's back to school time, whether you're headed into a secondary school or you're headed to college, or wherever you're headed, we wanted to talk to you about resources that come college, one of the private, and one of the state colleges. Three with hearing loss. So every state is different. We've had some conversations, and we'll talk some more about our experiences with our personal states. As a CART provider. I of them are very proactive with their students who come to them. have worked with other colleges outside of my state, remotely, for different and various reasons. And so I can shed some light on what happens from the captioning side and a little bit They offer Typewell, if that's what the student really prefers. from the local disability resource center, because I've been with them for so dang long. But I'm going to start with wherever you're headed to college. And no matter what your high school experiences, so Mom and Dad, this is for you, too. As you send your child off to school. Know that you want to I mean, we do have students that prefer that. Whatever their research the Disability Services Center in your college. Make sure your advisory counselor is aware of who they are, and they experiences in their undergrads, they prefer it in graduate get you in contact with them. They will have multiple options, no matter your disability. Now, sometimes they might say we've never used that. That's okay. Send them to Hearing Loss LIVE! We can talk with them. You will have options like some colleges school, we've had the opposite, where as an undergrad, they had are looped. Some have FM systems, some have note takers. Well they all have note takers, it's usually just another student. They have access to CART, computer-aided realtime Typewell, and, and in graduate school, preferred CART. Whatever translation (also known communication access realtime translationg), verbatim,verbatim captioning, and I can kind of talk you through what that looks like for each student. It can be different. They will have ASL, American Sign Language interpreters, they will have what's called Typewell, which is the reason. We have had note takers with CART, we have had a another form of live captioning, they are more of meaning for meaning. So pending what you like. Odds are you've come out of high school and you've been in the front row, CART and ASL interpreters in classes together, or CART does which is also an option under the Disability Resource Centers, or service centers. You may have had an FM system, maybe you've had Google meet, we have a high school student right now that uses live transcribe and Google meet for her classes. Kudos to this class and an interpreter is good for the student in this that principal, by the way, who went above and beyond to find out what would help her. I know there's some more, but I can't think of them. [laughter] I want to preface this is the class. So they really do go above and beyond and are really opportunity for you, whoever you are, whether you're new to hearing loss, whether you're 18 years old, and you've had a hearing loss as a child and accommodations, and you, you good with students. Now, all the colleges, under the umbrella at understand and your parents understand some of those accommodations. This is time for your hearing loss truth. This is your time to learn not to say I can't or not for you to say for you to not accept, well, we can't do that. This is your time the universities, the different colleges like College of to say well, why can't we do that? Why? Because then you're going to be successful in the workforce in a couple of different ways. And I do write this in the blog. So yes, I am a broken record. One, you are better at being proactive when Nursing, College of Medicine, College of Pharmacy, when they you walk out of college and request accommodations with that employer, you're comfortable, you know what they are. There's have outside events, or they need captions for professors, or some other benefits there. Your peers who you're going to work with when you go into your profession are going to understand hearing loss better. They take that with them as a hearing person and make it better. It's here that you will meetings or whatever, it's each department's job to set that up. learn your hearing loss truth and it's here I hope parents follow this podcast and blog to learn some differences that they may not know about, for whatever reason, in the high school and The Disability Resource Center shares information with them. So junior high, elementary whatever, because sometimes they think they've gotten all that's available and they may or may not. Now I will say for Utah and then I'll shut my mouth they have a list of available people, contractors with with the university, but it is each their departments job to do that. And that's where sometimes we have to come in and talk with them and train them. That makes sense. That's kind of some of my experience. And I'm always happy to talk to anybody new to captioning. about serving at a at a student college level, if you're new to it, what you're going to need and how much work it really is. Okay, I'm done. I didn't even ramble. How proud are we? Michele.

Michele:

Um, you know, I've volunteered for almost 15 years now. And when I come across young people, or even older people, who say they're in college, the first thing I ask them as do you know about CART? And usually the answer is no, what's that. And so I always send them videos to explain what it is, so they can see it demonstrated. And that's a big thing. I think whether a kid has had hearing loss for a long time, or short time, whether they're new toit, they might not be a great self advocate, their parents might have been their people to advocate for them. And I'm sure that they learned some things along the way. But in college, you're kind of shoved in there. And you have to make the request yourself. And I think a lot of college students don't know how to be good self advocates, don't know know how to hook up with the Disability Resource that their college. So that's a big transition. But they also don't know about the accommodations available to them. So I always ask that question right off the bat, do you know about CART because in my mind, when I think about me, if I were going to college again, I would need CART. That would be the gold standard for me. I don't think I could do, make do with anything else. And I think a lot of students don't realize they don't have to accept what is offered them at the beginning. They can try something but if it doesn't work, they have every right to ask to try something else. Because that whatever it is, is an effective, and you know, I think every college should have a great resource center for students and hopefully a lot of them do. I know University of Minnesota and my state, in the cities, I'm not sure about the Duluth campus where I live. But their disability resource center has an interpreting/captioning unit and any request for accommodations for the Deaf, hard of hearing, deaf/blind. They provide people for that they have in house people who provide those services and those accommodations. I know students who have used them to organize symposiums, I actually have requested CART at the college when there's a lecture that I want to attend. So University of Minnesota is great. I'm not sure about the other universities and colleges them and Minnesota but they do a great job. When I was doing research for this subject, I was looking around the internet. And I found on the ADA National Network an ADA knowledge translation center research brief, I can tell I'm not going to be able to talk very clear today, I'm getting Tongue Tied. Anyway, this brief states that 19% of undergraduate students and 12% of graduate students have disabilities. And that transition from high school to college can be a huge barrier for students. And so it's a great brief to read. So I think we'll link that somewhere, it's going to be linked on our blog. I also came across a good podcast where Annie Tulkin from Accessible College is interviewed, and she talks a lot about the issues that students in college come up against when they're Deaf and hard of hearing. So I found both of those things, very informative, and they had some good info in them. I'm gonna pause here and let Chelle jump in. And I'll go back and look at my notes. See if there was anything I wanted to mention.

Chelle:

Hello, this is Chelle. And I thought maybe I would do a pitch for assistive listening devices, too. Because that's probably all that some people need and that's okay. It doesn't have to be captioned. If you get by with assistive listening. Awesome. I, right now, I'm using a neckloop with my podcast. So that is one thing I will say if you are using an FM system, and or whatever, I know there's other technology out there. But if you have hearing aids at the telecoil and cochlear implant, all of them have a telecoil too, be sure to use the neck loop because you do get clear sound through it, than putting headphones over hearing aids. But you do have to check to make sure that your hearing aids have a telecoil. And it has to be a dedicated program, either-- like some, I hate to say this, but I don't think some audiologist understand that you need a dedicated telecoil program for neck loops and and they should be advertising these more because you know, it's a magnetic signal going up to my hearing aids right now. And giving me everything from my, through my specifically programmed hearing aids, when I do headphones over my hearing aids, I can get feedback that drives all hearing people crazy.[laughter] But I don't hear it so it doesn't bother me. But you know, back in the day, that would have been embarrassing. Now I just kind of laugh it off. Because I'm old and I don't care[laughter]. It doesn't bother me so much. So make sure you have that dedicated telecoil program. And if audiologist are saying it's old technology, and you don't need a telecoil in your hearing aid, get one anyway. I way prefer the neck loop above headphones. So you know. And then if you are in a looped room, which some places might have not every place, but oh my gosh, hearing through a hearing loop is like the clearest of all assistive technology that I've tried. The only thing that comes second, well comes in right level, even, is the Listen Everywhere, which is the Wi Fi based assistive listening. And that's, that's good for one way. Like if you're at a lecture, and you're not really asking questions or anything. So it equals quality of sound. But it's not really a participation thing like the hearing loop. So that's, that's my little spiel for assistive technology. Go ahead, Julia.

Julia:

Well, I love that you brought that up because I have had students where their classes are smaller. For whatever program it is they're in. And so the FM system at the university because they don't not live to, maybe when they redo, they can look at Listn Everywhere and looping for certain classrooms and places. But they do have an FM system, it's one of the older ones, it's from somebody here locally. But for him or her, the student could get fine, get gets by fine with their classes with the FM system, with their students, with their professors and the students. But with the exception of one professor, who was from Poland, so very strong accent, physics and chemistry classes. So intense math, which he probably I'm gonna give him kudos, he probably helped like, solve a lot of these math problems. You know, so words like Leibniz, you know, all these theories and theorems, and half the time, the students are whispering in my ears[whispering] "hey he's saying this", and or my own student, because I don't know what it is that, that the professor might be saying. But for that one class, the student needed CART, because it helped them figure out the math portion. And not only did he have an accent, he was very much at the board. So this is what the whole class was, while he wrote on the board, about the theory.[microphone noise] That's what they saw the entire class was his backside. And I sat just enough to try to look at the math and look at him all at the same time.

Michele:

That is a nightmare. I mean, I can remember as a little kid in grade school, middle school, having the teacher turn away from me was a nightmare. I'd have to get notes from from my classmates, so I can relate to that. Julia, you mentioned you, you do remote CART a lot for college students. And I live in northern Minnesota, we have a small city in Duluth, and there are no local CART providers. And that posed as a huge problem. For me, it was a problem because I was trying to get CART for a political convention and the political party I was a delegate for didn't want to provide on site CART, because there are no local CARTproviders, that means they have to pay a travel for someone to come from the cities. So I started researching, I contacted every college and Duluth, to see what they do for their students who are deaf and hard of hearing. The ones who do not know sign language, and they all said remote CART. Well, then I talked to some of the students. And they said it's great. However, it's not full and equal access, because the discussion portion of the class, usually the captioner, can't hear the students' exchanges. And so if the captioner was not hearing that, then that student who needs the accommodation doesn't have the benefit of that, and so they can't fully participate. And I can see where that would be a really huge thing. And that's where an onsite CART provider. So I think a huge thing that needs to happen is we need to get CART providers, you know, we need to grow that into an industry. I mean, make it a part of our infrastructure, and have CART providers on rural areas even because, you know, it's a need. And part of that also is the hard of hearing community becoming aware and using those resources. And that's how it will all grow together. So remote CART is great. It's a wonderful accommodation in the right setting. But when you're having class discussions, and there's no microphones for the students, it doesn't work well. And I would not be able to participate in a class like that. So that's that's a, you know, a factor.

Julia:

And I've experienced both with remote CART, it really depends on the college, and how well they work with their students. How well their system is. So in some cases because there's over 100 kids in the lecture hall, remote or on site, there's conversation I'm not going to to hear, because everybody is not miked even even onsite, I can struggle with that. If they have group discussions, that's something. I've had students who have group discussions regularly. And so we worked with the Disability Resource Center to set up making sure there was a microphone during the group discussions and one on on the professor. One Interpreting actually has the ability to work through Google, you know, Google meet, and they have they're now Sorenson, I should stop calling him One Interpreting, I'm gonna get myself in trouble. But they would send iPads with students. So the student could set up microphones where they wanted and hear where they wanted. And then there are other colleges that just don't do that. So I agree that it can be. The thing is the infrastructure could be there, whether it's remote, or whether it's onsite. But it all revolves around all of it. It's it. It's got to be everything. I can't think of the word right now. Let me think on that one, go for it Chelle.

Chelle:

Teamwork, there's got to be a lot of teamwork, right?

Julia:

Teamwork. There needs to be sound systems updated regularly in the colleges. There are places at the University of Utah, there is no choice for remote because there's no Wi Fi, there's no internet, because they are in a basement under a bunch of labs, and the interference. So you have to know, you know, you have to have those clear on what to do. And I agree, Michele, I wish that more people would look at going into CART. And I'm gonna say this and piss a bunch of people off. So I'm sorry. And we need to stop telling people it's a two year program. Might be. You might be able to do it in two years, and get to 200 words or 225 words a minute, but you don't have a dictionary like I do. So you're going to have a lot of work. And I think it's worth it. I think the pay is great. And there are some colleges that actually it's a full time job. And I think we need to offer that more. So that the services are just always there. I agree with that Michele just like interpreters. Most colleges have interpreting staff. They have a small staff. And then they have, you know, some companies that they contract with. But, you know, I agree with you the infrastructure needs to be the same across the board. I hope people will get with Global Alliance, consumers, providers, big companies, small companies, and start working on making that kind of reform happen. So that we have better gold standards. Okay, I'm done with my soapbox.

Chelle:

Okay, this is Chelle, again, I just want to say that as an adult, attending a college event, you can also request accommodations, and I'll name two events that I've done that with. They had Cheryl Strayed come in and do a talk with us about her book Wild several years ago. And it was through the community college here. They got captions because me and one other person requested it. So we did get captions there. And then I was attending an adult education kind of workshop at one point. I had to argue quite a bit ticket captions in that workshop, because it was it was a subdivision of the community college or something. And I had tried everything else prior to requesting CART. FM system, an outline, I had tried everything before asking for CART because that was the only way I could participate especially with you knowten People talking different places and trying to locate them and all of that. So it did come down to they had to provide it and I won't say had to but I had to argue [laughter] quite a bit in a nice way but firml to get CART into that workshop. So I could participate just like everybody else, and it was done. So like Julia said, the different departments don't always understand CART. So you have to educate sometimes.

Michele:

I just have one other short thing. Several months ago, I attended a colloquium online, and it was the University of Illinois, and different teachers, professors, were talking about students with disabilities. And the one thing that stuck out for me was the professor that said, When a student comes to you, and tells you what they need to participate, believe them, don't try to give them something that's not going to be effective for them. When they tell you what they need, and some college students won't know, but when a student knows what they need, believe them. And I think that was that was just a great thing, that, you know, I think colleges want their students to be successful. And part of that is being able to participate fully and equally.

Julia:

Thank you, Michele. That's very important. I would hope more professors, take that into consideration. I won't go into some of the things that have been said to me. We're at time, let's call it we're at time. So I won't say that. Yeah, we wow, right? Anything else before I close this out? Well, speaking of being proactive, have you signed up for Lipreading Concept Class? You know, it's only $6, and I think 25 cents a class. Not too bad. And it's a great way for you and any hearing person you might have. Want to have understand better about Rip leading. Oh, my heavens, I've been watching too much, Scooby Doo, I think. It's a great way for you and your hearing partners to better understand lipreading. It's a great class, we have four different times available for you during the week, day or afternoon classes and a Saturday class. So join us learn the lipreading concepts. I promise you once you do, it will make so much more sense. We have some great reviews we have on our site we can share with you. Those that have taken it have found out more information than they realized on lipreading. And it's about communication, right. So part of connections is the communication you have with others around you. So we do encourage, bring your hearing partners and family with you. Have them sign up. If you're a little bit shy. We also have registration for our recorded Lipreading Concept Class. It will be available September First, but if you sign up for it early, you might get a little surprise. I'm not gonna let you know what that is, not because I don't know what it is. But we'll see. Don't forget to subscribe, like us, visit us on Patreon if you want monthly content, or buy us a cup of coffee and Buy Me a Coffee. Tell us what it means to you this information we're giving and sharing with you. Tell us what you want to know more about. Who would you like to see us interview? Get in contact with this. Remember, we're on our one year anniversary starting in September. We're super excited. We will be doing crowdfunding. Help us get into 2023 and continue towards 2024. Chelle.

Chelle:

I'm gonna add one thing we have a twice a month newsletter. Please register for that there's lots of good information in that as well and it's free. We're not going to give away your addresses or anything like that. It's just our newsletter.

Julia:

Thank you for remembering that. And it's it's a pretty mean newsletter. I have to say there's always something you learned from it, whether it's hearing loss or other connections that we make and what we're doing. Thanks for joining us today. Bye. Want more Hearing Loss LIVE! content? Join us on Patreon or Buy Me a Cup of Coffee hearinglosslive.com