As part of our advocacy, #OneAccessibility, we will share information about differently able and profile one location with accessible trails. Look out every week for this enlightening post.
Hello everyone, and welcome to this week’s Accessibility Uncovered post!
As you might already know, September is Deaf Awareness Month and the Accessibility Uncovered articles by the One Accessibility have been all about assistive devices used by people hard of hearing. Today’s post will be the last of this topic, as it’s the last Saturday of September, but make sure to check next week for the topic of the next series!
In this post, I will share with you all a bit of how deaf people use phones, and especially cell phones, to help them through some challenges they might face due to their disability.
Cell phones have many integrated functions that help Deaf people use it and interact with information they might encounter in or outside the phone. And because of apps and continiuous enhancement, they make nearly limitless assistive devices for deaf people.
It depends on the phone, but these are some features that help!
- Visible and vibration alerts to avoid missing calls, messages and notifications with the possibility of choosing several vibration options as well as a flashlight.
- Live Caption for Media and Voice and Video Calls. Closed captioning when audio is detected.
- Automated closed captioning in audio recordings.
- Mono audio for people with deaf in one ear. To get all the information in both earphones, instead of stereo recordings where we have separate audio information in each ear.
- Talk with the phone’s assistant via text.
- Make calls as live text with the configuration of protocols called RTT and TTY.
- Connection with hearing aids.
Cell phones are undoubtedly very common nowadays, and of course with the amount of advancement they have reached, there are apps for everything!
So, of course, there are apps that help people with disabilities, like deaf people, deal with situations in which their disability prevents them from getting all the information in a situation, or help them communicate, for example.
Here is a list of just some of the ways Deaf people can use the powerful tool that is a smart phone to assist them, thanks to apps like these:
- Decks of pictures - dictionary. There are apps that store lots of photos and drawings of objects and more, to help people communicate with people that don’t speak Sign Language.
- Apps that detect sounds and warn the user with a vibration. The amount of decibels that will cause the vibration can be customized to fit the environment. It’s helpful in situations in which people are waiting for an announcement, for example.
- Apps that detect certain sounds and warn the user. Made to be turned on most of the time, the apps detects important sounds like sirens, water running, dogs barking, and more, and gives warning.
- Speech to text - Text to Speech apps. These kinds of apps let people turn text to speech, or speech to text, and they can come with some extra features too, that would help . There are many of the kind, but Google’s has to be one of the ones that work the best.
- Apps that caption calls. Talking can be difficult for deaf people, but it’s doable for people that are late-deaf (became deaf some time in their life) or have enough practice with speech training (an oral training that helps people produce sounds to make words and phrases)
- Emergency services without calling: apps made by governments that let you connect with emergency services in a nonverbal way.
- And more! There are infinite apps, and many ways to assist.
Like I mentioned in my article “Accesibility Uncovered - Remote Work”, devices, apps and websites need to have accessible features so people with disabilities can use them.
So there are also apps that don’t have a main function assisting deaf people, but have features that let deaf people use them comfortably and let them access information easily, like everyone else. Of course, our beloved Google Maps is on the list, giving visual cues and vibrations as alarms. Yes, Google Maps is accessible for deaf people, as it visually offers information and even vibrates as a warning in situations like when a place is reached.
About telephones, even though they are less common at this time and age, you’d be glad to know there are many kinds of telephones with added assistive technology:
For hard of hearing people, there are telephones that come with a big screen and automated closed captioning. This means that a deaf or hard of hearing person could read what the person at the other end of the line says!
So, yes, now you know this very same thing that we hold in our hands and is so common is also a powerful assistive device for deaf people. And you can also use it to help you communicate with ease with deaf people:
Including all the apps I mentioned, lots of apps that teach sign language exist and you can easily download them and start learning. So you can go ahead and install an app that teaches the Sign Language taught in your region!
I have a couple of questions for you!
- Have you ever used a Sign Language learning app? Did you find it easy?
- Have you ever seen a telephone with closed captioning tools?
If you have a question, suggestion, or contribution, feel free to comment below. You can read last week’s roundup article here and check the list of our other articles under “Accessibility Uncovered”.
: Inclusive Schools - Argentina’s way
y están en LSM y al final de cada video muestran 10 señas. Una seña que se me quedó muy grabada es la piña/ananá que cambia en algunas regiones de México. Y con el video de Steve 
aprendí “Thank you”
- me encanta leer comentarios así, especialmente que te hayas acordado del meet-up con Jules que yo también aprendí un montón y me re quedó.
) y sé que hay creadores de contenido argentinos ahí, que explican su experiencia como sordos mientras también usan lenguaje de señas así puede servir para aprender… pero cuando sos más avanzado jajaj.