October 15, 2008
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If I were elected President of the United States I would:
The question at Featured_Grownups this time is
If I were elected President of the United States I would:
(Disclaimer….I know that there are many many important issues that many people will talk about on this topic. This post by me is not to say that this is more important then all those topics, after all I will never run for president lol)
If I were elected President I would work on making all things available for the Deaf community. I would work on getting everything Closed Captioned. I would make sign language an available class for all high schoolers to take.
Closed captioning provides a critical link to news, entertainment, and information for individuals who are deaf or hard-of-hearing. For individuals whose native language is not English, English language captions improve comprehension and fluency. Captions also help improve literacy skills. You can turn on closed captions through your remote control or on-screen menu. The FCC does not regulate captioning of home videos, DVDs, or video games.
If I was president I would ensure that all TV programs, DVDs and video games came with high quality CCs.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ National Center for Health Statistics approximates that 34 million Americans have a significant hearing loss; of these almost six million are profoundly deaf.
Deaf people have safer driving records than hearing people nationally.
70% of deaf people believe they have failed to get a job because of their deafness
64% have experienced communication difficulties at work and over 50% are unable to communicate with their hearing colleagues
60% were looking for another job because of their treatment at work
Step
1
Turn on captions for
one week – just seven days – and leave them
on.Step 2
Come back here at the end of the week and
let me know how it went – positive or not.Take the challenge
So that is what I would do as President
My little pet project.
Comments (18)
that’s quite the challenge!–though it wouldn’t work for me (I don’t watch enough tv)
lately I’ve been watching one movie a week? and that’s with whatever we watch together come Friday night as a family.
hmmm
movie theaters.
Do you think when a new movie comes out (that’s not a foreign film)
it should have captions then?
I bet a number of non-deaf folk would get annoyed at that.
@TransexualTwat - yes, I think it should have captions. Some movie theaters have captions below the screen for the deaf. I think all theaters should have captions.
Deaf people like to watch movie too. Why should they have to wait until it comes out on DVD while everyone else is watching it in the theater.
All theaters need captioning.
This is what this topic is about!
I like that idea of sign language being a class for school. My daughter worked with a deaf man, and she in a very short time, learned to communicate with him by just paying attention to him and trying to understand what he did. It wasn’t sign language…just their own way of communicating.
Nice ideas.
@ThePhilsBlogBar - thank you
ISU takes sign language instead of a foreign language as a requirement. One of my daughters friends took that instead of Spanish or French. She is now studying deaf education.
@momofjenmatt - I think that is great. A lot of schools don’t offer that.
My professor is learning sign language because he wants to be able to help and communicate with deaf people. I like this idea a lot.
I did this challenge ten years ago…I lived in a foreign country, it’s how I learned to apply the language, I went to the movies a lot so I could at least have a peace of home with me, it was a great tool for me to read the captions in Spanish and listen to the words in English. Now I’m perfectly fluent in both.
i think your post is great!
thanks for sharing.
Good ides, I like the sign language as a foreign language class ideas
I tend to leave my closed captioning on because I leave my volume down low on purpose–trying not to disturb the neighbors. I rely on both in case I miss something said. it’s a me thing, I guess. But this is also a pet project. And good for you for making it a priority.
I used close captioning, but I find that it lags behind the speaking, but of course, I can hear. But sometimes it helps because you don’t understand what is being said….
These are great ideas. We really do need to make it better for all people!
Great ideas. Well done.
x
As a lightly hearing impaired individual, I’ve had the captions on for years. My favorite part of captoining (other than the obvious benefits of catching what I would otherwise miss) is that sometimes networks don’t pay attention to captioning, especially when they run clips together (like in newsprogramming). it is fun to see what (otherwise) foul words national networks let through because they forget that their captioning audience is “listening”. Also, some cartoon producers will actually put real words in the captions for characters who mumble, thus giving the deaf community a little something “extra”. Captions are great. Unfortunately, one of our tvs is so old that it doesn’t have the capability.
I’m not deaf, but am very hard of hearing. I don’t watch TV that much, but when I do, I often mute it and get closed captioning to find out what the heck they’re saying…