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Hearing Disabled See Whole New World with Closed Captioning

By: James Boswell

The new law requiring closed captioning decoders on many new television models is an incredible opportunity for communicating with the over 24 million Americans who are suffering from some level of hearing loss. Even those folks without hearing impairments will be helped by this law. People who support this inclusion say that even people who have perfect hearing stand to benefit from this law. Both children and adults with hearing issues will find this an aid to their lives. If you're learning English for the first time, it can also be a boon. On average, people watch 24 hours of television each week, which has replaced activities from years past, like reading books and talking to one another.

Closed captioning cannot replace sparkling conversation or an engaging book, but it's definitely better than simply sitting slack jawed in front of the television. As of July 1993, all television sets, with a 13 inch screen or bigger, that are brought or made in the United States will have to be equipped with closed captioning decoder circuitry so that they can display the transmissions for closed captioning.

Closed captioning gives those with hearing impairments a chance to explore a whole new world, according to one preschool audiologist. Kids who suffered from large hearing impairments couldn?t understand television before. And because of a continuous sound distortion, even those who had some hearing ability were losing a lot of information. Allowing phone conversations to be changed into printed words is the job of the telecommunication device for the deaf (TDD). Some people would compare the benefits of closed captioning to the ones the TDD offers.

Closed Captioning offers even more. Whether or not they have a handicap, both children and adults can use closed captioning to make their reading skills better. Those for whom English is a second language or adults who struggle with reading should be able to view the words as spoken and enhance their reading and spelling. The televisions are capable of turning of the closed captioning feature, also. Closed captioning can also help keep people with hearing problems apprised of breaking news in their area and around the world.

This will bring about equality for Americans in the video revolution. Hearing impaired individuals don't have the same access to television shows that we may take for granted. The mother of one young woman, who is profoundly deaf, said she has seen great new horizons, thanks to closed captioning. But, you needn?t suffer from this level of hearing loss to gain from it. Many elderly people find their hearing is going. Thirty-five percent of our elderly people are dealing with a hearing loss. Closed captioning allows more normalcy. One 13 year old boy has hearing loss classified as severe or profound has missed out on a lot without closed captioning.

An auditory manner was his method of education. His mother said that many do not agree with this teaching method. There is no signing in this class setting, and no lip reading permitted in the earlier grades. So the visual becomes very important. The student uses a hearing aid and compensates with what he can see. According to the mother, this allowed her son to become more reliant on his hearing, and get to the point where even telephone conversations are easy. Finally the mother did allow closed captioning because it would help his reading. Most closed caption films have the captioning at the bottom the picture beneath the person speaking. Sound effects are typed out and whispering is denoted by the use of italics.

Deaf and hearing impaired individuals celebrated the first Oscar broadcast available in closed captioning. That was in 1982. Sixteen hours of closed captioning was available when ABC started showing it in 1980. Over 400 hours of closed captioning programming can be watched each week. All of the prime time shows for each of the three major networks is available in closed captioning. Almost 60% of on networks programming is featured in closed caption. Understanding the importance of closed captioning has led to the use of it in over 2,000 movie videos and the increased inclusion of it by cable networks.

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A law was recently passed, requiring the installation of closed-captioning decoders on new TV sets, thus opening up a whole new world for the 24 million Americans with some form of hearing disability. This benefit, doesn't stop at those who have difficulty hearing.

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