Updates for HLONEWS- 6/2/04

From: WRAD/HLO - Jun 2, 2004

News of items:

1. Shakey's Pizza this Thursday June 3 in Northridge, California .
2. Coffee Bean this Saturday June 4 at Farmers Market, Los Angeles, California
3. INFORMATION FOR PRELINGUALLY DEAF TEENAGERS AND ADULTS WITH COCHLEAR IMPLANTS
4. New Website for Pride in Copenhagen, Denmark
5. Deaf Asia Festival 2004 at GLAD in Los Angeles this Saturday from 9am to 6pm

1. Shakeys Pizza

Don't forget to attend our HLO pizza night at Shakey's Pizza this Thursday night June 3rd at Shakey's in Northridge on Reseda Blvd near Devonshire from 5pm until closing. It is a fundraiser for the HLO project of the WRAD, Inc. organization. Usually we have a good crowd there especially students from CSUN and Pierce College.

2. Coffee Bean Gathering at Farmers Market at the Grove in Los Angeles this coming Saturday night June 5th from 7pm until closing. It is a popular place where you can also shop and find many places to have dinner at Farmers Market or at the Grove. It is on Fairfax and 3rd Street in Los Angeles. Many restaurants close at 9pm at Farmers Market BUT there are others you can choose to eat at the Grove that close after 9pm.
A nice place to meet old and new friends. Sponsored by the HLO project.

3. INFORMATION FOR PRELINGUALLY DEAF TEENAGERS AND ADULTS WITH COCHLEAR IMPLANTS

There are many PRELINGUALLY and PERI-LINGUALLY deaf individuals (deafened in both ears before age 7) who are receiving and using cochlear implants. Those of us who do use cochlear implants are able to hear ALL sounds, including the sounds of human speech. This makes lipreading much easier, and enables us to RECEIVE information, but what about our ability to SPEAK TO other people so they can understand us when we are talking to them?

PRELINGUALLY and PERI-LINGUALLY deaf people have significant speech problems because we couldn't hear all sounds, or our own voices, or the voices of other people, when we were very young. We are often seen as being "silent" even though many of us have the complete English language in our minds as "inner speech" and even though we are completely fluent in reading and writing the English language.

So, are there any other people who can hear all sounds and who have speech problems? Yes, there are many of them! So how do THEY communicate their own words and their own speech to nondisabled people?

SPEECH-TO-SPEECH COMMUNICATION ASSISTANCE

Speech-to-Speech (STS) is the method that is being used by many people who can hear, but who have speech difficulties, and/or pronunciation difficulties, due to disability. These people are all able to speak on a regular telephone, through a new STS Nationwide Relay Service. There is an operator who understands "unclear speech" and who is able to repeat what the speech-disabled person says in a clear and understandable voice. Many thousands of speech-disabled persons are using this free relay service, where they don't need to "type everything" anymore, and they are free to simply speak on a voice telephone just like everyone else.

In recent years, there are also STS C.A. service providers (Speech-to-Speech Communication Assistants) in the general community to assist people who can hear general sounds, including speech sounds, but may not be able to speak clearly. For a PRELINGUALLY or PERI-LINGUALLY deaf person, this means that ALL of your own words will be PRECISELY and EXACTLY repeated by the STS C.A. without any changes or modifications. This is great news for people who want to speak their own words to everyone in the general community!

COMPARISONS OF STS C.A.s WITH OTHER FORMS OF PERSONAL ASSISTANCE

* ASL Interpreters function in a completely nonphonetic and NON-ENGLISH foreign language that is not based on the sounds of human speech. Therefore, these people simply look at your signs, and "figure out" which words THEY want to use.

* Sign-Coded English Transliterators also function by looking at your signs.

* Oral Transliterators often are able to understand a "deaf person" when the deaf person is speaking, BUT it requires a long period of familiarity with a specific deaf person, and it also requires the deaf person to have a long period of learning how to lipread the Oral Transliterator, too. Oral Transliterators are more appropriate for assisting the RECEPTIVE communications of a deaf "oral" person, and usually are used by deaf people who have clear and understandable voices and who can easily speak for themselves to other people. [In other words, it is a "one-way" kind of accommodation, for deaf people who can speak clearly, but most of those people are now getting cochlear implants and don't need Oral Transliterators anymore]

* SPEECH-TO-SPEECH is the ONLY accommodation appropriate for a PRELINGUALLY or PERI-LINGUALLY deaf person WHO WANTS TO SPEAK WITH THEIR OWN VOICE, especially if they DO NOT want to "sign" while they are speaking. Many people find that it is much easier and MUCH FASTER to communicate by speaking, without signing. But until recently deaf people were without STS C.A. services and therefore needed to use signs while speaking to hearing people. This is not true anymore!

ANNOUNCEMENT FROM WRAD, INC. AND THE HEARING LOSS OUTREACH PROJECT

WRAD has been investigating STS C.A. services and has SET UP ITS OWN CERTIFICATION PROGRAM FOR THE CERTIFICATION OF STS C.A. SERVICE PROVIDERS FOR PRELINGUALLY AND PERI-LINGUALLY DEAF INDIVIDUALS!

We have been testing this NEW service for several years, and have found it to be wonderful, easy to use, and the MOST EFFECTIVE accommodation available for prelingually and per-lingually deaf people with "unclear speech" to FINALLY use our voices to SPEAK OUR OWN WORDS to hearing people and to general society.

We have already CERTIFIED one VERY PROFESSIONAL STS C.A. who has been completely trained to assist, in particular, prelingually and peri-lingually deaf people who have cochlear implants. In many cases, this Certified STS C.A. can even understand prelingually and peri-lingually deaf people's voices on a regular voice telephone.

[NOTE: If you are prelingually or peri-lingually deaf, have you ever found any other kind of "service provider" who can understand your speech on a regular voice telephone? We have tested and trained our FIRST FULLY-CERTIFIED STS C.A. who can demonstrably understand even BORN DEAF people's voices on a regular voice telephone, and also understand deaf people who have "foreign language accents," and we can prove it!]

But now we DO HAVE another option that DOES NOT require us to "type" anything at all, or even to "sign" anything if we don't want to "sign." Those of US who were trained to the best possible extent in oral-aural or auditory-verbal methods NOW have a way to SPEAK TO EVERYONE using OUR OWN WORDS and OUR OWN VOICES!!

WE NOW HAVE THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH, something which prelingually and peri-lingually deaf people NEVER HAD BEFORE. We can SPEAK FOR OURSELVES, with our own voices, and have OUR voices repeated by an STS C.A. clearly and understandably.

The LAW says that we do not need to "accept" any service provider that does not DEMONSTRABLY meet our NEEDS. And all human beings HAVE THE RIGHT TO FREEDOM OF SPEECH, especially in the United States! This is the most fundamental RIGHT of all human beings.

ANNOUNCEMENT OF TRAINING OF FUTURE ADDITIONAL STS C.A. SERVICE PROVIDERS FOR PRELINGUALLY AND PERI-LINGUALLY DEAF INDIVIDUALS

For all of you out there who WANT to use an STS C.A. service provider, LET US KNOW by return email. We have established a TRAINING PROGRAM to CERTIFY future additional STS C.A. service providers. Any interested persons should send an email directly to the HLOnews.

OTHER OPTIONS FOR USING YOUR OWN WORDS TO COMMUNICATE DIRECTLY WITH HEARING PEOPLE

1.) There is a portable unit called a LIGHTWRITER, and you can type on it and it SPEAKS your words to hearing people in clear speech. Many persons with other types of speech problems use the LIGHTWRITER system, and other SPEECH OUTPUT computer programs, including the famous speech-disabled Astrophysicist Dr. Stephen Hawking (who lectures about black holes in space and other matters, all over the world, even though he cannot speak clearly!)

GOOD NEWS! If you have a speech disability of any kind that prevents other people from understanding you, the LIGHTWRITER portable SPEECH OUTPUT system is available through BOTH Medicare AND Medicaid (Medi-Cal in California)! And it is also covered by most major health insurance companies. For more information, contact the HLOnews.

2.) PORTABLE LAPTOP COMPUTERS that are more recent, can run DRAGON NATURALLY SPEAKING PREFERRED VERSION (make sure it is the PREFERRED VERSION) that can be programmed to understand the speech of a person with a mild or even moderate foreign accent or even "deaf speech." IF you have a voice that is "understandable" and IF you can pronounce all of the PHONETIC SOUNDS of the English langauge, you can use Dragon Naturally Speaking PREFERRED to understand YOUR voice. AND THEN, you can have that same progam SPEAK your own words to other people clearly and understandably.

Also, please be aware that Dragon Naturally Speaking PREFERRED can EASILY UNDERSTAND A HEARING PERSON! A hearing person only needs to spend about one hour training the computer. Thereafter, when the HEARING PERSON speaks into the computer's microphone, the computer will display the HEARING PERSON'S words on the screen, and you will get almost perfect realtime captioning... anywhere you are!

3.) Speech Recognition programs have improved TREMENDOUSLY in the past few years, just like all other technologies. IF you are working in a hearing company, you can ask for an accommodation to use Dragon Naturally Speaking PREFERRED on a laptop computer or notebook computer provided by your company, and you can ask your hearing co-workers and supervisors to program their voices into the computer program -- thereafter, whenever they want to speak to you, you simply need to ask them to speak into the computer microphone, and the computer will type what they are saying on the computer screen. USUALLY, if the hearing person has a clear voice, you will get at least 90% of what the hearing person is saying... accurately. And the program can store up to ONE HUNDRED different voices from hearing people.

4.) There are many other Speech Recognition and Speech Output systems available. Check out ALL of these additional systems to make yourself MORE INDEPENDENT. There are many situations where YOU CAN USE YOUR OWN VOICE AND YOUR OWN WORDS TO SPEAK TO HEARING PEOPLE, AND UNDERSTAND HEARING PEOPLE without needng constant "personal assistance."

5.) GOOD NEWS FOR PEOPLE WITH COCHLEAR IMPLANTS -- these same Speech Output systems can give you information, slowed down if necessary, that you can learn to UNDERSTAND with your cochlear implant. It is the best way to learn to "understand speech" and to give YOURSELF auditory training, even if you are too busy to go to an auditory-verbal trainer or speech therapist.

THIS IS ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE A CLARION COCHLEAR IMPLANT OR A NUCLEUS-24 COCHLEAR IMPLANT. The Clarion and Nucleus-24 DO HAVE the capability of giving you the ability to understand SPEECH SOUNDS, but most people with those implants don't have a lot of access to Listening Skills training. Therefore, using a computerized system for Listening Skills Training can be done anywhere you want, anytime you want, and at your own convenience. And you can modify the sounds to speak any words that YOU want to learn to listen to!

FOLLOW-UP INFORMATION

For more information, or to join our HLO Initiative for FREEDOM OF CHOICE AND FREEDOM OF SPEECH, send an email message to the HLOnews.

MESSAGE TO EXISTING ASL INTERPRETERS, SIGN-CODED ENGLISH TRANSLITRATORS AND ORAL TRANSLITERATORS

We send a message to you INVITING YOU to become OUR certified STS C.A. service providers and to be tested as to whether you CAN understand "deaf voices" when a deaf person SPEAKS and does not "sign."

WE state to YOU that a "qualified" person to assist a PRELINGUALLY DEAF or PERI-LINGUALLY DEAF INDIVIDUAL with "unclear speech" is the person who CAN FULLY AND ACCURATELY REPEAT THE EXACT WORDS THAT THE DEAF INDIVIDUAL IS SPEAKING WITH THEIR OWN VOICE! Therefore, we invite all of you to go through OUR testing procedures to PROVE that you can convey OUR words and OUR voices and OUR speech FULLY, ACCURATELY AND PRECISELY, including any "specialized terminology" that WE may be speaking.

A FINAL NOTE TO THE PRELINGUALLY AND PERI-LINGUALLY DEAF COMMUNITY

Times have changed.

TODAY, late deafened people, hard of hearing people, AND the auditory-verbal trained deaf children with cohclear implants, ALL have very clear and undersandable speech.

The ONLY people left WITHOUT "clear and understandable speech" are the VERY TINY MINORITY of prelingually and peri-lingually deaf teenagers and adults. And many of US are choosing to go through Cochlear Implant Evaluations, and to accept these durable medical devices to imrpove our RECEPTIVE information from the world of sounds.

This process is beginning through the CERTIFICATION AND USE of STS C.A. assistants, and improved Speech Recognition and Speech Output computerized devices, all of which ARE AVAILABLE TO US, and will become even more available in the future.

To join US, send a message to the HLOnews. We welcome you assistance.
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4. Denmark Pride Website:

The Pride information for the Copenhagen Pride in Denmark from August 12-15, 2004

www.lbl.dk/rainbowpride

5. Deaf Asia Festival this Saturday from 9am to 6pm at GLAD, 2222 Laverna Avenue, Los Angeles. Among activities provided: Exhibit booths and vendors and Festival Conference. For more information go to www.deafasia.org/daf/dafest.html
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