« March 2008 | Main | June 2008 »
May 29, 2008
Deafness No Bar to Woman's Goal of Legal Career
Everything from television technology to text messaging has made life easier for Sonya Smith.
When she watches programs on Lifetime, her favorite cable channel, she sometimes reads the closed captioning - a feature that allows text to be displayed on the screen; at other times she reads the characters' lips.
"I love looking at people and reading their lips," said Smith, who was born deaf.Text messaging also is popular and she uses it as another tool to communicate with family and friends via her cell phone.
Posted @ 4:15 AM
Deafening Call for New Toy Law
Health Canada is examining the way it tests noisy toys to make sure they aren't damaging childrens' tender ears.
Many toys seem to sing, shout, beep and wail at deafening decibels.
And the current testing method -- holding a toy at an adult arm's length -- doesn't reflect the reality that kids hold toys close to their ears, audiologists warn.
Noise-induced hearing loss is growing. Studies in the U.S. show 12.5% of children have hearing problems caused by noise in one or both ears.
Posted @ 4:11 AM
Deaf Groups Warn of TV Complaints
Commercial television networks face the possibility of potentially embarrassing discrimination lawsuits by the deaf after failing to renew an agreement that covers the captioning of programs.
Under a five-year deal signed with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission in 2003, the networks committed to increase the captioning of their content to 70per cent in exchange for an exemption from claims of discrimination.
Posted @ 4:09 AM
Teen determined that being deaf will not keep her from achieving her goals
As slow music plays, 16-year-old Annette Tavernese moves gracefully across the studio at Jackson Dance Center.
Her muscular legs carry her in fluid backward or forward steps. Her back arches, her head falls back, her arms float.
The 5-foot-1-inch, 114-pound teen has danced since she was 5: ballet, tap, jazz, hip hop, contemporary and more.
Posted @ 4:09 AM
Woman Scamming Deaf Community
San Diego police are looking for a woman who goes by "Lisa" who they say is suspected of defrauding members of the deaf community with a pyramid scheme.
Police say she offers to pay off credit-card debt in exchange for cash, then pays the bills with bogus checks and online payments drawn from stolen bank accounts.
Posted @ 4:08 AM
St. John’s Schools for the Deaf Gets New Computer Lab
As part of the activities marking the international telecommunication day, a new computer lab for St. John’s school for the deaf was inaugurated at the school grounds in Kanifing.
In his welcoming remarks at the launch, Mr. Daniel Mendy, Principal of the school, gave a brief history of the project.
According to him, it all started in 2007 when the Information Telecommunication Association of The Gambia (ITAG) provided a preliminary training for the deaf girls of the school. ITAG was impressed with their performance and decided to expand the scheme to a computer lab.
Posted @ 4:07 AM
DNR takes hunter education classes to Michigan School for the Deaf
Dressed in camouflage pants and headband, Mike Fisette, 16, looks right at home leaning against a rack of shotguns. Nearby, his buddy Ray McCall, 14, sits on a table heaped high with outdoor gear.
Usually, John Bell's uniformed team of instructors is riding herd over 50-100 youngsters at a time. Here, the two teens are outnumbered three-to-one but no one seems to mind. The class might be smaller but the goal is the same: to teach budding young hunters the basics of Michigan's original outdoor sport.
Posted @ 4:06 AM
Time Warner raises $18,000 for the Texas School for the Deaf
School for the Deaf receives $18,000 from Time Warner Cable, News 8
Time Warner Cable and News 8 Austin, its 24-hour news channel, raised more than $18,000 for the Texas School for the Deaf.
The money was raised at the annual Kars & Kids classic car and hot rod show, held on the school's South Congress Avenue campus.
Posted @ 4:05 AM
School for deaf, blind to close
The Virginia School for the Deaf, Blind and Multi-Disabled in Hampton will close at the end of June, clearing the path to consolidate the state's two schools for students with visual and hearing impairments.
The state Board of Education voted Wednesday to end state-operated programs at the Hampton school, including residential and day-program services, on June 30.
Forty students are enrolled in Hampton's programs this school year, and all but 14 are graduating or moving to Staunton, according to state Department of Education spokesman Charles Pyle. School officials plan to work with those 14 families to arrange for their continued education in their home districts, Pyle said.
Posted @ 4:05 AM
Nearly Deaf Professor Teaches English Literacy
After three degrees, after five universities, after 40,000 pupils, and after 84 years, 10 months and 25 days, John Kuhlman has circumnavigated his way back to the essentials of education: a teacher and a student in a room.
John Kuhlman, left, a retired college professor, helps Jose Cordova, an immigrant from Ecuador, learn English.
Decades ago, he was a student, the 6-year-old son of a wheat farmer in eastern Washington, going to a school that fit all 12 grades under a single roof. His earliest memory of academic life is of hiding behind the classroom stove lest he be called upon to wash the lunch dishes.
Posted @ 4:04 AM
Hawk Relay Becomes Sponsor of Momentum Cycling Team
Momentum Cycling Team announced today that Hawk Relay, a fast-rising Relay provider for people who are Deaf, Hard of Hearing and Speech disabled, has agreed to sign on as a sponsor for the team, the only USA professional UCI Track Team with 2008 Olympians.
Hawk Relay is a Deaf owned and operated telecommunications relay provider for Deaf, Hard of Hearing and Speech disabled people. Hawk Relay operators provide functional equivalence in telecommunications - allowing relay users to communicate with anyone.
Posted @ 4:02 AM
Deaf woman in landmark legal battle to lift jury ban
A DEAF mother of two barred from jury service because she cannot hear is to launch a landmark legal action aimed at quashing the ban.
Joan Clarke, a former factory worker from Galway who has been deaf since birth, will claim she is entitled to serve on a jury by means of a sign-language interpreter.
Ms Clarke, who wants to perform "this important civic duty", is seeking to have a decision to exclude her from jury service set aside, claiming that the blanket ban on deaf people carrying out jury duty is a breach of her rights under the Constitution and the European Convention of Human Rights.
Posted @ 4:02 AM
Deaf NY girl among finalists in Google logo doodle contest
A 13-year-old New York girl who was born deaf is a regional finalist in the Doodle 4 Google contest to reinvent Google's home page logo for a day.
Molly Kestenbaum redesigned the Internet search giant's logo by illustrating the letters in American Sign Language. The teen lives about 30 miles north of Manhattan in Harrison and is one of 40 out of 16,000 who are finalists in the contest.
Posted @ 4:00 AM
May 18, 2008
Graduate offers hope to tinnitus sufferers
Paul Waldon knows quite a bit about overcoming adversity.
The Manukau Institute of Technology Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) graduate overcome a broken neck and damaged hearing to achieve his degree and undertake research for a solution for other tinnitus sufferers.
Mr Waldon fell off scaffolding in 2001 he severely damaged his cervical spine. His doctor gave him two options: continue scaffolding and have another operation in five years time or find a job that doesn’t involve heavy lifting.
Posted @ 1:32 AM
Implant gives back gift of hearing to man
Southeast Salem resident Jack Fischer was deaf — for four months. An ear infection cost most of his hearing in his right ear five years ago. But when it happened again to his left ear in July, he became almost totally deaf.
And he didn't know what to do.
At 59 years old, he wasn't ready to retire from his private practice as a clinical social worker who counsels families.
Posted @ 1:31 AM
Implant helps deaf student achieve honor
There was a time in Amber Sprenger's life when only her mother could understand what she was saying. About six years ago, everything changed.
It was then that Amber, now 12, had a cochlear implant. The procedure, which involves surgically implanting a system of electrodes inside the ear and then connecting them to transmitter's and microphones placed on the outside of the ear, allows users to better interpret sounds.
Posted @ 1:30 AM
Missouri Firefighters Dismiss Their Hearing Loss Claims
Federal Signal Corporation announced today that the Missouri firefighter plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed their hearing loss claims. The dismissal follows a string of successes for the Company in the hearing loss litigation during 2008. Less than a month ago a Cook County, Illinois jury absolved the Company of liability in a similar suit brought by 27 Chicago firefighters. The jury deliberated for less than two hours after a month long trial.
Posted @ 1:27 AM
School for Deaf employee
A New York State School for the Deaf employee can’t say that she is headed to Afghanistan this year.
But Patricia Brunk told her students before she left, "I am bright enough to surmise that it will be a warm and sandy year, but not in Hawaii or Florida."
A member of the Army Reserves for eight years, Brunk is a psychologist at the school. She left her civilian job recently to begin training for deployment to Afghanistan. She resides in Blossvale with her husband. They have lived in the area since Brunk took her job at the School for the Deaf in the summer of 2006.
Posted @ 1:27 AM
17-year-old makes strong case for granting the deaf drivers' licences
Why should the Government give deaf persons permission to drive?
That was the US$1,500 question that 17-year-old Christophe Phillips asked at the Altamont Court Hotel in Kingston Saturday.
Phillips, a student at Lister Mair Gilby School for the Deaf, placed first in the Caribbean District of Optimist International's Communication Contest for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and won for himself US$1,500 in scholarship money.
Posted @ 1:26 AM
Viable Opens Call Center in Maryland to Serve Deaf and Hard of Hearing
Viable, a next-generation video relay services provider for deaf and hard of hearing people, has extended its call center activities to downtown Frederick, Maryland. The call center is located at the heart of the city, at the intersection of the Market and Patrick Streets, close to the main campus of Maryland School for the Deaf (MSD).
Established in 2006, Viable works to open new avenues of communication for deaf and the hard of hearing people through its video relay services. This can be accessed using the Internet at home, or via wireless connectivity from other locations.
Posted @ 1:22 AM
A Glove that speaks for the Deaf
Technology has always been of great help to the disabled and given them a helping hand to allow them to live a normal and healthy life like others. Inventors from Carnegie Mellon University have come up with a novel idea of a glove named Handtalk that will convert hand movements into text and allow the deaf to express themselves better.
The Handtalk glove needs to be worn on the hand by the deaf or mute person and depending on the variation of movement, the device will convert it intelligently into text and display it on a mobile phone for the other person to comprehend it easily. The Vibrating Braille mobile lets the blind express themselves using technology, now it’s the turn of the deaf and the mute.
Posted @ 1:21 AM
Church Harnesses Internet For Ministry To Deaf
Karen Kurt steps to the wooden podium and proclaims the word of God—silently.
With her hands and facial expressions, she uses American Sign Language as the lector for an online Liturgy of the Word for deaf Catholics.
“It’s a great feeling to be able to help reach thousands of deaf Catholics. My family thinks it’s neat that I’m doing this! Seeing ordinary, humble, deaf people signing the liturgy can be inspiring to others, to know they can too learn the Word,” said Kurt in an e-mail.
Posted @ 1:20 AM
CETRA Bridges Communication with the Deaf and Hearing
In response to increased demand from clients, CETRA is pleased to announce the addition of Sign Language Interpretation to its worldwide translation and interpretation services. Accordingly, CETRA has joined the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID). RID, the leading organization in the U.S. representing sign language interpreters, has established a national standard of quality and promotes the continued growth and development of the profession of interpretation and transliteration of American Sign Language and English.
Posted @ 1:20 AM
Deaf couple take a leap to hear in Hear and Now
Imagine living your life deaf since birth.
Imagine meeting and falling in love with your spouse, who is also deaf, and living decades of happy, productive lives in silence.
Imagine finally having the chance to hear. Would you do it ? How would it change you and your relationship ? That’s the basis for a deeply personal documentary today on HBO.
Posted @ 1:19 AM
Deaf student overcomes barriers in the classroom
For most, technology can be considered an "extra" or a "perk," but for the past several months it has been a necessity for Janel Kendall.
Kendall, who is the first deaf full-time student to attend North Central Michigan College, has been using video conferencing for the past semester to connect to interpreters at Southern Illinois University to sign her professors’ in-class lectures.
Posted @ 1:18 AM
Solar-powered hearing aids help poor deaf folk
Did you know that there’s 250 million people around the world who are hearing-impaired? Even worse, two-thirds of them live in the developing world. Odds are, these people don’t have the type of money needed to buy conventional hearing aids, primarily because their expensive batteries last only about a week. What if you could design an affordable hearing aid for the world’s poor?
Posted @ 1:17 AM
Deaf students take over town for a day
For the average person, a day of running errands usually does not mean a day of struggling with communication.
For a deaf person, it is rare to go from the grocer to the bank to the post office with the ease and comfort of being able to communicate in his or her native sign language.
For 140 deaf and hard of hearing children, on May 2 the ability to easily communicate with every person across the city became a reality.
Posted @ 1:16 AM
Sexual assault hot line expands to serve deaf
The Southern Arizona Center Against Sexual Assault has expanded its hot line to serve those who are deaf or hard of hearing, according to an announcement from the organization.
The TYY crisis hotline can be reached at 327-1721 and is operable 24 hours per day, seven days per week.
Posted @ 1:15 AM
Phone service lures away deaf interpreters
A new U.S.-based service helping deaf people with telephone communication is contributing to a critical shortage of sign language interpreters in B.C. because it offers better pay and flexible hours, the president of a B.C. interpreters group says.
The new technology, called video relay service, allows individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing to contact an operator through a video phone hooked up to the Internet. Operators are sign-language interpreters, so they can communicate with the deaf person and then relay the conversation to a third party over the phone.
Posted @ 1:15 AM
Trip to Jackson exposes similarities as deaf, hard-of-hearing
The deaf and hard of hearing can do anything except hear, according to B.J. James, audiologist for Centennial BOCES and the Morgan County schools.
In an effort to connect youngsters who share this “low-incidence disability,” students from many northeast Colorado schools gather once each year for an educational field trip. This year’s trip, held Friday afternoon, was at Jackson Lake State Park near Orchard.
Posted @ 1:13 AM