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What are your favorite apps for hearing loss or tools you use?

Hearing Loss | Last Active: Mar 21, 2021 | Replies (153)
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@joyces

Reply to Julie, re speech-to-text apps: I hear well enough to handle most social exchanges, but meetings that last hours with all technical talk are another matter. When there are new words or concepts, I need to "read" the speaker. (Of course, I haven't been to any tech meetings since masking started, which would be a REAL challenge.) So, for me, the app wasn't really necessary in casual situations and just got terribly confusing when I really needed the help. In addition, I haven't found an app that doesn't fail miserably for tech terms. It's one thing to have TV captions scrambled, but losing half the words in one sentence is really difficult. I've been spared for well over a year because I realized that the scientific project I was involved in was headed nowhere...all decisions required consensus, which meant that nothing difficult could be included in crafting a statewide solution. Conservation is great, but it's far from enough to turn things around when all the rivers report zero streamflows at some point every summer. Unfortunately, this project will determine how water is managed within Oregon far into the future, totally ignoring the greatest problems. I'm working in a more direct way to find a solution for the lack of water every summer on the Oregon Coast: no snow pack in the Coast Range, every little town full of tourists who need water.

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Replies to "Reply to Julie, re speech-to-text apps: I hear well enough to handle most social exchanges, but..."
imallears | @imallears | Mar 5, 2021

@joyces
I wonder if Otter would help with technical terminology. It was marketed for meetings and interviews and there may be a way to import any technical vocabulary that you use. I use the free version and find it the most accurate of the four apps I have loaded on my phone.

FL Mary

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Julie, Volunteer Mentor | @julieo4 | Mar 5, 2021

@joyces Thank you for the good work you're doing. Meetings are always difficult for people with hearing loss. It's very different when they are in person than when they are online. For in person meetings, you have a right to have communication access. You do have to request it in advance, according to the American's with Disabilities Act. (ADA) Sometimes it means the provision of technology like FM systems, Infrared systems or hearing loops. CART (computer assisted realtime transliteration) is also an accommodation. With CART, a person with court reporting/stenography skills provides the written transcript on a screen. It's basically real time captioning. Providers of CART are difficult to fine, but they are out there. If people would request CART more often, more providers would exist.

We all know that hearing loss is a disability. We know the ADA exists, but we don't use it. COMMUNICATION ACCESS is just as important as mobility access. Far too many people think that providing a sign language interpreter provides the access we need. That's far from true because less than 10% of people with hearing loss know or use American Sign Language (ASL).

We must know what is available and ask for it. We have a lot of educating to do.

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