← Return to Hearing Loss: Come introduce yourself and connect with others

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@tonyinmi

@julieo4 I will update this group after the webinar. I hope the questions get answered. Like you, I experimented with Google Meet for our state association before deciding on Zoom. At that time, Google only displayed a maximum of 4 participants, I believe. I think they've since updated so that 16 can be seen. I have a large computer screen and with Zoom, I can see up to 25 people at once. When we tested Google Meet for the automatic captions, the captions were fine for the folks that have good speech. We pulled in a board member that does not have good speech and the captions failed miserably. Automatic captions are not reliable for those voices. We, too, pay for captions when we have our board meetings and have also decided that we need paid captions for Executive Committee meetings because the member with a challenging voice is our treasurer. I don't know if automatic captions will ever be good enough for challenging voices and heavy accents, but you never know. Who would have thought we would be where we are today with automatic captions? I'm guessing that the challenging voices is why Zoom is holding off on their captions. They don't want to settle for "good enough".
Tony in Michigan

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Replies to "@julieo4 I will update this group after the webinar. I hope the questions get answered. Like..."

Thanks Tony. Keep us posted on what you learn. The challenging voice issue is something many people don't understand. It happens as a result of poor hearing over many years. It's often referred to as 'deaf speech'. That is not an insult to deaf people, but it's a reality. When you lose hearing, or never had good hearing from birth or early childhood, you are not aware of certain sounds. Speech therapy can help with children, but it takes a huge effort. When we lose hearing, it's generally in the high frequencies, generally the consonant sounds (all sounds other than vowels). Consonants basically define words. Vowels don't, but they give speech power. Here's the difference: _u_ _ _ e (Vowels) vs p_rpl_ (consonants) Here's another one: _o_o_ _y_ _e. (y can be a vowel.) That's a 4 syllable word. vroom vroom is a hint. Now if I give you the vowels you can probably figure it out. m_t_r c_cl_ Reality is, when you don't hear sounds like s, th, f, n, m, c, etc. you tend to omit them from speech and your speech gets distorted.There are lots more of those soft sounds, but you get the idea. Deaf speech also tends to be nasal, which makes it even harder to understand. And, for those of us with adult onset hearing loss it's a huge barrier. We have to circumvent that barrier as best we can if we associate with other people with hearing loss. A good CART provider can usually translate it pretty well. Crossing my fingers that Zoom will get the message about captioning. CART is wonderful, but it's expensive to provide.