1 LAUREL: Good afternoon and 2 welcome to today's webcast on 3 Students with Disabilities in 4 College. This is the second of two 5 webcasts. This is Laurel Richards. 6 I'm sitting in today for Rachel Kosoy 7 with the 8 Disability Law Resource Project. It's a project 9 of ILRU in Houston. And I want to`-- a couple of 10 things before we get started on today's webcast. 11 One is, this is a very casual means of delivering a 12 presentation. It's kind of casual and personal with 13 each of us sitting beside our computer. Some of you 14 are listening through your speakers; some of you are 15 reading the captioning. I'm in one place. Beth 16 Case, our presenter is in Chicago. Our person who's 17 going to answer the questions, Dawn Heinsohn, is in 18 an office across town. The technical folks are on 19 the other part of town, and the realtime 20 captioner -- we're pretty well scattered; not as 21 scattered as all of you-all are. But you know, it's 22 kind of a personal means of doing a presentation, so 23 we kind of keep it casual and personal. Today we're 24 going to have this presentation. As we say, it's 25 the second of two. It'll run right about 90 1 minutes; it won't run any longer. And Beth, if we 2 get done quickly and you talk as fast as I do, we'll 3 be done in 20 minutes. I want to remind all of you, 4 as you're looking at your screen at Real Player, on 5 the part where there would be video is the realtime 6 captioning. And just below that, it says, "If you 7 wish to submit a question, click here." What that 8 will do is bring up your e-mail program, whether 9 it's Outlook or Eudora or whatever it is that you're 10 using. It'll be pre-addressed to us at ILRU. You 11 simply type in your question and hit the send 12 button. And sometime during the presentation, Beth 13 will ask for questions and they'll be read to her by 14 Dawn Heinsohn. Don't hesitate to send in questions. 15 We'll welcome any type that you have. We've found 16 that that can be part of the presentation, that we 17 can be pretty flexible. And if we run over -- Beth, 18 if there's a long question that goes over, we'll 19 just answer it or Dawn will ignore it. We can go 20 either way with that. Also, before we go, sometimes 21 people have some sort of technical problem with the 22 setup. It's not often. As we become more used to 23 delivering presentations using the webcast, we have 24 gotten more proficient. If you have difficulty 25 today, don't hesitate to call us here at ILRU to 1 receive technical assistance. We have people on 2 standby, standing by the telephone, ready to answer 3 your questions. Now, the telephone number is 4 713-520-0232. 5 Let me repeat that. It's 6 713-520-0232. And for those of you 7 using TTY, it's (713) 520-5136. 8 (713) 520-5136. By the way, we've 9 found that using a relay is an 10 efficient way to convey messages for 11 these webcasts. Whatever works best, 12 we're ready for you. 13 Today's topic is Determining 14 Appropriate Services for Deaf and 15 Hard of Hearing Students, focusing, 16 Beth, I believe primarily at the 17 college level, but we'll have 18 application for public school? 19 >> BETH: Oh, sure. 20 LAUREL: I don't have to tell 21 those of you in the audience that 22 students with hearing loss are a 23 diverse group; an enormously diverse 24 group. I think Beth has pointed out 25 before that it's come -- you know, to 1 what extent you have hearing loss or 2 the age at which you experience your 3 loss or whether or not you use 4 hearing aids, whether or not you sign 5 and so on. It's`-- it's a very 6 diverse group of people. 7 And as you all know just from 8 your own experiences, that's a person 9 with a hearing loss or working with a 10 person with a hearing loss. The 11 classroom environment is another 12 factor which plays into this in the 13 variety of accommodations that are 14 available to people at the school 15 level. It's the key to today's 16 presentation. So we're going to turn 17 it over to Beth Case. She's a 18 disability counselor at North Harris 19 College. 20 >> BETH: North Harris College. 21 It's in Houston. I just happen to be 22 in Chicago this week for training, so 23 I'm -- but I do live there in Houston 24 and work there. 25 LAUREL: And you're not so far 1 from home. You're also the Texas 2 Outreach specialist for the 3 Postsecondary Education Consortium. 4 BETH: I'll explain a little 5 bit about what that means. 6 LAUREL: And you're 7 president-elect of the Association on 8 Higher Education Disability in Texas. 9 Well, as you can see, Beth is ready 10 to go. So Beth, welcome and we look 11 forward to hearing your presentation 12 today. 13 BETH: Thank you. I would like 14 to reiterate, please send in 15 questions. I have planned this 16 presentation to leave plenty of time 17 for questions. Because I think 18 that's just a very important part of 19 these sorts of things, is the 20 opportunity to get your questions 21 answered. If we don't get to your 22 question today, they'll forward me 23 any questions we didn't get to and I 24 can respond to those and have them 25 posted or get back to you personally. 1 I'll be sure they put my contact 2 information on the website if this 3 is -- if it's not there already. If 4 you want to talk to me further or on 5 a one-on-one basis, I'll be happy to 6 do that. 7 I'll talk a little bit about, 8 before we get started, my different 9 hats so you know where I'm coming 10 from. I'm a disabilities counselor 11 at North Harris College. I've been 12 working with Disabilities in Higher 13 Education for eight years now, 14 although I've only been at North 15 Harris going on two. 16 Another hat is working with the 17 Postsecondary Education Consortium. 18 PEC is part of a larger program, 19 PEPNET, which stands for 20 Postsecondary Education -- I've just 21 lost it -- Programs Network. There 22 we go. 23 >> LAUREL: Sometimes acronyms 24 are just hard. 25 >> BETH: You get so used to 1 calling them by the acronym, you 2 forget what they stand for. PEPNET 3 has four regional centers, of which 4 PEC is the southeastern region. And 5 they're a federally funded program 6 that works to help promote quality 7 postsecondary opportunities for 8 students that are deaf or hard of 9 hearing. We do a lot of things -- 10 trainings, workshops, creating 11 informational materials, 12 disseminating materials, doing 13 one-on-one consultations, all kinds 14 of technical assistance and outreach 15 at no cost. I'd like to reiterate 16 that because -- use us. If we're 17 not being taken advantage of, why 18 would we -- why would the Government 19 fund us? If you are working with a 20 deaf or hard of hearing student 21 postsecondary, please feel free to 22 contact your PEPNET person. You can 23 go to www.pepnet.org and you can find 24 out who's the person for your area. 25 I am the outreach specialist for 1 Texas. If you live in Texas, you 2 call me. My contact information will 3 be on the website. 4 One thing I do like to clarify 5 is that we don't do direct service 6 provision. We don't provide 7 interpreters. We tend to work with 8 the professionals who are working 9 with the students with hearing loss, 10 to help them understand how to 11 provide quality services and doing it 12 in a technical support for them. 13 This webcast is a perfect example. 14 We're going to talk about how to 15 determine the appropriate services 16 for someone that's deaf or hard of 17 hearing. This is exactly the kind of 18 workshop that I can come to a school 19 and do. I can do this, again, at no 20 cost to you because it is grant 21 funded. 22 And the Association of Higher 23 Education and Disability is the lead 24 association for anyone working with 25 students with disabilities 1 postsecondary. It's an international 2 organization, and we have a Texas 3 chapter which I am president-elect 4 of. I have a few hats going on here, 5 but I want you to know I can be any 6 sort of resource to you. Please do 7 not hesitate to contact me, and I 8 would be glad to help you out. 9 Let's get on to the 10 presentation. Enough about me. A 11 lot of people think, if they're new 12 to disability service, is "I have a 13 deaf student. They need an 14 interpreter." And that's not always 15 the case. There are other services 16 that are available and useful to 17 students that are deaf or hard of 18 hearing. There's a lot of factors to 19 take into consideration to determine 20 whether an interpreter is an 21 appropriate service or if it's even 22 the best service. Maybe something 23 else would work better. 24 What I'd like to do is sort of 25 go through the presentation and I'll 1 address questions at the end and 2 we'll answer questions until we run 3 out of time. 4 I'm going to talk about first 5 the types of services other than just 6 interpreters. What are some student 7 characteristics that you need to take 8 into consideration? What are some 9 course characteristics, things about 10 the class they're taking that you 11 need to consider in determining the 12 most appropriate accommodation? And 13 then pull it all together somehow. 14 So that's the plan for how this is 15 going to go. 16 So let's start with types of 17 services. The obvious one, 18 interpreters. If you're not in the 19 field, you may not realize there's 20 lots of different types of 21 interpreters. There's not just one 22 sign language. Most countries have 23 their own sign language. That's news 24 to a lot of people. That's not 25 universal. Even within the United 1 States, there's more than one type of 2 sign system. 3 American Sign Language is 4 probably what most people think of, 5 and it is a manual system, meaning 6 that it's a language on the hands, 7 that is, in fact, a language in its 8 own right. It meets all the criteria 9 for what makes a language. It has 10 its own syntax and vocabulary. The 11 word order is completely different 12 from English. It's not just English 13 on the hands as sometimes people 14 perceive it to be. There's an actual 15 translation that is required. Just 16 like if you were translating from 17 English to Spanish or any other 18 spoken language, it's not a word for 19 word translation. 20 Same idea for interpreting. To 21 interpret into ASL does require 22 training. Being able to take some 23 sign classes, be able to sign, even 24 for yourself, is not the same as 25 being able to interpret someone 1 else's words. It's a different 2 beast. If you're looking to hire an 3 interpreter, make sure you're hiring 4 somebody who is -- has training as 5 an interpreter, not just someone that 6 can sign. There is a difference. 7 How do you know you're hiring 8 someone who is qualified? That can 9 be tricky. There are two national 10 certifications. There's one that's 11 offered by the Registry of 12 Interpreters for the Deaf, R.I.D. 13 That is a pass/fail certification, so 14 either you're RID certified or you're 15 not. If you have someone that's 16 R.I.D. certified, you can feel 17 confident that they're a qualified 18 interpreter. The National 19 Association of the Deaf or N.A.D, up 20 until recently had a certification 21 test. What has happened recently is 22 NAD and RID have gotten together and 23 developed a new test, that is the two 24 organizations working together to 25 develop one test. 1 So you'll have people who are 2 N.A.D. certified, including myself, 3 even though they're not offering a 4 certification anymore. N.A.D. has 5 five levels, 1 being the lowest and 5 6 being the highest. If you have 7 someone who is a 1 or 2, they're 8 really not considered certified to 9 work as an interpreter. It gives you 10 a feedback on their skill level. But 11 you really want to look for someone 12 who's a Level 3 or higher, if 13 possible. Of course, many states 14 have their own certification system, 15 so you would look at your own state 16 to see if your state has its own 17 certification system and what level 18 is considered to be certified. 19 And of course, there may be 20 times that you have to hire someone 21 who is not certified, because as we 22 all know, there's a huge interpreter 23 shortage. It then becomes trickier 24 to determine whether or not you're 25 hiring someone who is qualified, if 1 they don't have a piece of paper 2 showing someone has evaluated them. 3 In that situation, what you would 4 probably want to do is have someone 5 who is certified, someone who is a 6 highly qualified interpreter to 7 evaluate this person to see where 8 their skill levels are at. Let's 9 move on. That's just talking about 10 ASL interpreting. 11 Now, on the other -- if you look 12 at it as a continuum, you have ASL on 13 one end of the continuum. On the 14 other end is signed English. There's 15 a couple of different systems. You 16 might hear about Signed Exact 17 English, See Signs, Signed English, 18 those kinds of terms. Those refer to 19 an English manual system. Signed 20 English is English on the hands. 21 There is a sign for every word. You 22 sign in the same word order as 23 English. It's really not a different 24 language. It is English. It's just 25 a visual form of English. 1 It's very, very important when 2 working with a student to know, "Does 3 this person sign English or American 4 Sign Language?" Because an 5 interpreter who does ASL is not going 6 to be understood at all by a student 7 who uses signed English and vice 8 versa. A student who signs American 9 Sign Language will not understand an 10 interpreter that does signed English. 11 So it's very important to make sure 12 that the interpreter -- if you decide 13 an interpreter is the most 14 appropriate service, that the type of 15 interpreter is the same system used 16 by the student. 17 Now, if you have A.S.L. on one 18 end of the spectrum and signed 19 English on the other end of the 20 spectrum, there are a limited number 21 of ranges in the middle of someone 22 who uses A.S.L. signs but they put 23 them in English word order, or 24 they're using mostly A.S.L. with some 25 signed English things thrown in. 1 Just because of the interaction among 2 people who sign with different sign 3 systems, there becomes sort of a 4 pigeon or contact sign system that's 5 somewhere in the middle. That may 6 be`-- you may have someone that signs 7 more in the middle area, sort of a 8 combination of the ASL and signed 9 English. And again, you need to make 10 sure you have an interpreter that can 11 sign at that level. Many 12 interpreters can do some adjusting in 13 their interpreting, but that's 14 something you'd have to evaluate and 15 see. You know, "Do you sign purely 16 ASL, or are you able to do more?" 17 Now, those are all manual 18 interpreters, meaning that they use 19 their hands. There are other types. 20 There are oral interpreters. These 21 would be used mostly with students 22 who lip read. What they are doing is 23 mouthing what the teacher or speaker 24 is saying, but they're sitting right 25 in front of the student. Whereas 1 when you have a teacher, they're -- 2 you know, they tend to be pacing the 3 room. They're not always faced onto 4 the student. They may have their 5 back to the classroom at points. 6 They may have a beard or other facial 7 characteristics that make it 8 difficult for them to be lip read. 9 Or you may have something like 10 listening to the television, where 11 you're not going to be seeing the 12 person all the time. They're going 13 to be watching a movie in class, that 14 sort of thing, in which case you 15 would use an oral interpreter. 16 A common misconception is: 17 "Anyone can do oral interpreting. 18 All I'm doing is just mouthing what 19 the teacher is saying anyway. I'm 20 just echoing the teacher." That's 21 really not true. Oral interpreting 22 is a very specialized training, and 23 it's one of the things that not 24 everyone can do. I went to an oral 25 interpreting workshop to learn how to 1 do it and was told I would never be a 2 good oral interpreter because I have 3 a short upper lip and that makes me 4 difficult to read. 5 So again, there are certain 6 physical characteristics that are 7 going to make it easier for the 8 person to understand your lip 9 reading. And as I learned through 10 the workshop, there are specific ways 11 of forming words that make it easier 12 or more difficult to read. So there 13 is a very specialized training. It's 14 not just something that anyone can 15 sit down in front of the student and 16 mouth and they'll be able to know 17 what's going on. 18 AAnother system is cued speech. 19 Cued speech is a type of lip reading 20 that is supported with some manual 21 gestures. Again, this is a very 22 specialized training; it's a very 23 specialized system. But what it 24 does, for example, a B. and a P., 25 they look the same on the lips. So 1 there would be -- it's hard to do 2 this on the phone. It's just 3 auditory, so I can't show you. But 4 there would be the hand put in a 5 certain place, at a certain location, 6 generally around your mouth or neck, 7 that would show -- and moved in a 8 certain way to show, "Did I say a 9 'P,' or did I say a 'B'? So it's 10 kind of a supported lip reading. 11 And the last thing I want to 12 talk about as far as interpreters 13 would be tactile interpreters. And 14 this is generally used with 15 deaf/blind. There's a few different 16 ways of doing it. But what they all 17 have in common is that the consumer 18 will be touching the hands of the 19 interpreter. They are feeling the 20 signs that are being done because 21 they can't see them. 22 So just to say: "This person 23 gets an interpreter," it's not as 24 easy as that. You really have to 25 look at the student and determine 1 what kind of interpreter they're 2 going to need. 3 All right. Another service 4 other than interpreting that has 5 become incredibly popular is speech 6 to text transcription. You are 7 seeing a bit of this right now if you 8 are on the internet listening to me 9 and watching what I am saying coming 10 up on the screen. This is a type of 11 speech to text translation that is 12 what we generally refer to as CART, 13 Communication Access Realtime 14 Translation. CART -- let me back up 15 and talk about speech to text in 16 general. This is a way of taking the 17 spoken word, the speech, and putting 18 it into words that can be read, 19 similar to turning on the captioning 20 on your television. How this works 21 in the classroom can be a couple of 22 different ways. A common way is that 23 the student would have a laptop 24 computer on their desk, and you would 25 have the transcriptionist -- 1 depending on what system they used, 2 they would be typing either into a 3 keying machine or on a laptop of 4 their own that is connected to the 5 laptop on the student's desk by a 6 wire. Some places go wireless. The 7 words are appearing on the student's 8 screen so they can read what is being 9 said in the classroom just with a few 10 seconds lag. It's pretty much 11 realtime. This allows them to be 12 able to`-- I'll get back to that in a 13 second. 14 Okay. Another way of doing it, 15 if you have more than one student who 16 needs to have access to this, it can 17 be projected onto a board, on a 18 screen, in front of the classroom 19 where everyone can see it. So that's 20 the common setups in the classroom. 21 This kind of service is 22 generally used for students that are 23 hard of hearing as opposed to fully 24 deaf, but that can be an exception. 25 One thing you're going to hear me say 1 a lot is, "It's just going to 2 depend." You've got to look at the 3 student and the situation 4 individually. 5 There are some different systems 6 of speech to text transcription. I 7 started to talk about CART. CART has 8 been around the longest. And you're 9 using someone who has been trained as 10 a court reporter. And they are using 11 a special keying machine and software 12 on the laptop that will expand their 13 abbreviation system that they're 14 using when they type, which is what 15 allows them to type so quickly. It's 16 taking those key strokes and 17 expanding it into the word that is 18 meant by that abbreviation. So the 19 student is reading the full word, and 20 they're getting pretty much a 21 verbatim transcript of what's being 22 said. 23 More recently, there has been a 24 couple of systems developed. One is 25 called C-Print. And the other is 1 Type Well. Type Well. C-Print and 2 Type Well both use an abbreviation 3 system that is typed on a standard 4 keyboard. So using C-Print or Type 5 Well, the captionist or 6 transcriptionist would have their 7 laptop, the student has their laptop, 8 and the transcriptionist is typing an 9 abbreviation system that allows them 10 to type much more quickly than 11 someone who's typing the full word. 12 A good typist can do 60, 65 words a 13 minute. With the C-Print or Type 14 Well, you can get 90 to 100 words a 15 minute. You're typing an 16 abbreviation for a word, the software 17 is expanding the word, and the 18 student is reading the regular 19 English word. 20 The big difference between CART 21 and C-Print and Type Well is that 22 with C-Print and Type Well, you're 23 generally not getting verbatim. Even 24 at typing 90 to 100 words a minute, 25 most people are talking 120 to 130 1 words a minute. I'm trying to keep 2 it slow. Slow me down if I go too 3 fast. 4 So what that transcriptionist is 5 doing is listening for meaning of 6 what's being said and typing in the 7 meaning, even if they're not using 8 the exact same words as the teacher. 9 The teacher might take three or four 10 sentences to say something that can 11 be said in one sentence. So the 12 student is still getting all the 13 information; they just may not be 14 getting it word for word. The 15 transcriptionists do strive, as much 16 as possible, for verbatim, but the 17 reality is they're not going to be 18 able to type at the same speed of a 19 CART reporter. 20 The difference between C-Print 21 and Type Well, from the consumer's 22 point of view, from the student's 23 point of view, is- -- there's really 24 not going to be much difference. The 25 difference would be on the 1 transcriptionists' end. There -- 2 there are different abbreviation 3 systems. I refer to it as Coke and 4 Pepsi. They're kind of the same 5 thing but they're competitors. If 6 you like one; you probably hate the 7 other. I certainly do not promote 8 one over the other. I'm not going to 9 get into that. 10 The C-Print is based on 11 auditory, their abbreviations are 12 based on word sounds; whereas Type 13 Well is based on how words are 14 spelled. And that's really the main 15 difference. And I will make sure 16 that we get some links put up to 17 their website so you can do your own 18 research. 19 One of the other big differences 20 is that CART is a very highly`-- it 21 requires a lot of training. I 22 believe a typical program takes a 23 couple of years to go through to be 24 a court reporter, to be trained to be 25 able to do CART. C-Print and Type 1 Well can both be learned in a matter 2 of months, so it is quicker. 3 So if you're looking at wanting 4 to get someone at your college 5 trained to do something, that might 6 be another consideration. Again, 7 it's going to come back to what is 8 needed. 9 If you're working with a student 10 in a graduate-level class or, you 11 know, medical school or in a legal 12 program, they're going to want 13 verbatim, word for word, what was 14 exactly said. If you're talking 15 about a lower, undergraduate class, 16 something like the C-Print or Type 17 Well will probably be just fine. 18 Okay. I'm going to talk about the 19 pros and cons of that later. 20 Another thing people ask me 21 about a lot is voice recognition 22 systems. Now, C-Print is working on 23 a voice recognition system. Another 24 program that does something similar 25 is Caption Mic, Caption M-I-C. And 1 with those systems, you still have a 2 service provider, a 3 transcriptionist-type person, but 4 they're talking into a mask. And the 5 computer has been trained to 6 recognize their voice, to take what 7 they are saying and interpret that 8 into a word so that they can talk 9 into this mask. It looks like if you 10 have surgery and the anesthetic -- 11 it's the clear mask they put over 12 your nose and mouth. It's that sort 13 of thing. It reminds me of that. 14 They're talking quietly into that, 15 echoing whatever the teacher is 16 saying, and the computer is 17 translating that and putting the 18 words onto the student's laptop 19 computer on their desk. 20 There is another system called 21 I-Communicator. They try to have the 22 teacher wear a microphone that is 23 then directly translated. And they 24 also have a little box that has a 25 person in it doing sign language, 1 translating what the teacher is 2 saying. These sort of systems -- 3 you're going to hear a lot of debate 4 about whether or not they are good or 5 not. My personal opinion is they're 6 on the right track, but I don't think 7 they're quite there yet. And it has 8 nothing to do with those particular 9 companies, just with the level -- the 10 accuracy of voice recognition 11 software in general right now. It 12 has really improved since I first 13 started working with voice 14 recognition software ten years ago. 15 The differences are just amazing in 16 how much more accurate they are. But 17 it still requires training for the 18 software to learn your specific 19 voice. If you have a cold, it blows 20 everything, because you're going to 21 talk differently when you have a 22 cold. It's not going to recognize 23 you as well. If there's a lot of 24 background noise, that's going to 25 interfere. So if you're thinking 1 about doing one of the voice 2 recognition systems, I would say test 3 it out before you invest a lot of 4 money and see if it's going to work 5 for your situation. 6 Going back to a recurring theme 7 here, you have to look at each 8 individual situation, with the 9 specific student, in a specific 10 course, in a specific classroom. And 11 it might be that one of these systems 12 would work great for you, but they 13 can get expensive. So test them and 14 see whether they're going to work 15 before you spend a lot of money. 16 We use the voice recognition 17 quite successfully with some of our 18 students who have mobility problems, 19 who are not able to use their hands 20 to use the computer to type their 21 papers and that sort of thing. It 22 works wonderfully, but that student 23 has been able to train the software 24 to understand their voice because 25 they're using it all the time. They 1 know all the commands and everything. 2 So I'm still kind of holding out my 3 vote on its use in the classroom 4 because of all the variables. It's 5 improving very quickly and it may not 6 be long before it's a perfectly 7 viable option. 8 Another option I'd like to talk 9 about is assistive listening devices. 10 These are for students with some 11 hearing. Someone that is totally 12 deaf, this is not going to work. 13 There are different kinds. Some of 14 the brands you may have heard of: 15 Phonic Ear and -- you may have heard 16 them referred to as FM systems, 17 A.L.D., Assistive Listening Devices. 18 And basically it's an amplification 19 system. The speaker -- for a 20 personal use assistive listening 21 device, the speaker or the teacher 22 wears the microphone, and it's 23 attached to a small transmitter, 24 which is about the size of a pager 25 that they can clip on their belt or 1 pocket or whatever. The student has 2 a similarly-sized receiver that they 3 have plugged into either headphones, 4 just like the kind you'd use 5 listening to a Walkman, or a loop, 6 which is -- they flip over their neck 7 and it transmits the signal to their 8 hearing aid. And what happens is 9 that everything that goes into the 10 mic that the teacher is wearing gets 11 transmitted directly to the receiver 12 that the student has. So what the 13 student is hearing through the 14 headphones or through the loop is 15 just what is going into the mic. So 16 for students that are hard of hearing 17 and have a lot of difficulty in a 18 classroom situation because of 19 echoes, because of background noise, 20 because of distance from the teacher, 21 they're going to be able to get a 22 much clearer signal because they're 23 picking up what's coming directly 24 from the microphone, only inches from 25 the teacher's mouth, and they're able 1 to control the volume. 2 There are also systems that you 3 can get for larger venues. If you 4 have an auditorium or, you know, some 5 place like that, a large room for 6 conferences or large groups of 7 people, with the likelihood of being 8 more than one person in there needing 9 this system, there's a whole variety 10 of different types of 11 conference-sized systems you can get. 12 I'm not going to go into that because 13 we're focusing on accommodating 14 students in the classroom. Chances 15 are you're not going to need a 16 conference-sized system for a 17 classroom. Even with two students 18 who both needed them in the same 19 class, you could still have one 20 transmitter with two receivers set to 21 the same channel, and the teacher 22 could transmit to both students. 23 Now, let's say you have a 24 student in the next room over who's 25 also using one. Their system would 1 simply be switched to a different 2 channel so they're not listening to 3 the lecture next door. 4 So some things to keep in mind 5 with assistive listening devices is, 6 one, the student has to have some 7 residual hearing. If they wear a 8 hearing aid, what type is it? 9 Assistive listening devices work 10 differently with different types of 11 hearing aids. Some of them they're 12 not going to work with at all. 13 Depending on the type and level of 14 hearing loss of the student, it might 15 not work. So again, this is one of 16 those things where I always let the 17 student try it out before they get 18 into the classroom, to make sure that 19 the type of assistive listening 20 device that we have is going to work 21 with their hearing loss and their 22 hearing aid. 23 If you're working with a 24 specific student and you want an 25 assistive listening device, there's 1 variables to take into account as far 2 as, you know, this brand or this 3 model might not work, but this other 4 one might work. If you're in that 5 situation, contact me. I can give 6 you a reference of a place that can 7 help you sort through that. It's a 8 woman named Becky something that 9 lives in Kentucky, and she helps 10 people figure out which kind of 11 assistive listening device is going 12 to work best for them. And I can 13 give you her contact information if 14 that's something that you need to 15 deal with. 16 Okay. Another accommodation is 17 notetakers. That's pretty common. 18 For students that are hard of 19 hearing, in the past, this was their 20 main accommodation. A lot of 21 students that are hard of hearing 22 don't sign, so interpreters weren't 23 an option. So what a lot of us have 24 done in the past, as disability 25 service providers, is we would give 1 them a notetaker who would make sure 2 they got good notes in class, and 3 that was about all that we could do 4 for them. If we knew about assistive 5 listening devices and we had a 6 system, maybe we gave them that. But 7 like I said, it's not going to work 8 with everyone or with everyone's 9 hearing aids. So this was the main 10 accommodation. 11 So to go back to the speech to 12 text transcription, one of the 13 reasons it's become so popular is 14 because as it's becoming more common 15 and as students that are hard of 16 hearing are finding out about it, 17 they're requesting it more and more. 18 In some places, the request for 19 speech to text is higher than the 20 request for interpreters. It's not 21 so much that the students that used 22 interpreters are now switching to 23 speech to text, it's more students 24 that had minimal services in the 25 past, that are hard of hearing, are 1 now finding out that, "Hey, there's 2 something that gives me better access 3 to the classroom." The problem with 4 using just notetakers is that the 5 student didn't have realtime access 6 to what was going on in the class, so 7 they couldn't participate or ask for 8 clarification or answer questions 9 because they didn't understand what 10 was being said or didn't understand 11 the question. Maybe they didn't want 12 to look foolish by answering what 13 they thought was asked and then 14 finding out that it wasn't what they 15 thought, and so a lot of students 16 learned to not say anything. With 17 the speech to text transcription, 18 that's just really opened up the 19 doors to allow students to 20 participate who maybe didn't in the 21 past and understand what's going on 22 as it's happening. 23 But notetakers are still 24 important for a number of reasons. 25 If you have a student who's using an 1 interpreter, they cannot watch the 2 interpreter and look down to take 3 notes at the same time. If they're 4 looking down to write, they're 5 missing what was said during that 6 time. You physically can't look both 7 places at the same time. 8 I took a class from a deaf 9 professor at one point, so my eyes 10 had to constantly be on her to 11 understand what she was lecturing 12 about. And yet I was trying to take 13 notes. It led to notes that ran off 14 the page and down the side of the 15 page and things like that. So it's 16 important, if you have a student with 17 an interpreter, to provide a 18 notetaker to get down notes for the 19 student. 20 Also, even if they're using the 21 speech to text transcription -- now, 22 this is kind of a policy decision for 23 your school. Some schools will give 24 students a copy of the transcript; 25 others won't. There's pros and cons 1 and arguments on both sides. That's 2 off on the side. Even if you're 3 giving someone a transcript of what 4 was said in class, especially if 5 you're using CART, you could end up 6 with 20, 30 pages or more of verbatim 7 transcript of what was said during 8 the class. 9 You're doing it right now. 10 Imagine reading exactly what someone 11 is saying, especially when we start a 12 sentence and go off on a tangent and 13 forget to come back to our original 14 sentence. It's sometimes hard to 15 follow. So for a student to try to 16 study from verbatim or even the very 17 detailed notes that the C-Print and 18 Type Well give is kind of difficult. 19 So even if they have those 20 transcripts, it's not a bad idea to 21 have another notetaker at the same 22 time that is getting the gist. 23 Remember when you were in school, you 24 didn't write down every little thing, 25 you wrote down the important things, 1 like in an outline format or 2 something else that made it easy to 3 study from. So even with someone 4 who's using a speech to text, 5 providing a notetaker can be really 6 useful. 7 If someone is using assistive 8 listening devices or using a hearing 9 aid and saying they can pretty much 10 hear what's going on in class, having 11 a notetaker is not a bad idea because 12 things can still be misheard. The 13 teacher could say, "We're going to 14 have a test on the 13th," 1-3, but 15 what the student heard was the 30th, 16 3-0. Well, they're thinking the test 17 is in two more weeks, but the teacher 18 says, "Clear your desks. We're 19 having a test." So having a 20 notetaker that can get down those 21 important pieces of information helps 22 make sure the student is 23 understanding what's going on in the 24 classroom. 25 So those are pretty much the 1 major accommodations that are 2 provided to students that are deaf 3 and hard of hearing. I'm not going 4 to guarantee I haven't left something 5 out, but those are the main ones. 6 I want to talk about student 7 characteristics. What are things 8 about the student that are going to 9 influence which service you offer? 10 The first thing is amount of usable 11 hearing. If the student has no 12 usable hearing, an assistive device 13 is going to do them no good; whereas, 14 if a student has a lot of usable 15 hearing, chances are they don't sign. 16 Now, there are always exceptions, but 17 you tend to find students who can 18 still use some of their hearing tend 19 to be relying on lip reading and the 20 closed captions as opposed to 21 signing. How much hearing they have 22 left is going to affect the service 23 you offer. 24 The type of hearing aid. As I 25 mentioned before, certain assistive 1 listening devices, depending on the 2 brand and which model, are going to 3 work better or worse with specific 4 hearing aid types. 5 Also, I mentioned briefly when 6 talking about assistive listening 7 devices, they may use a headset 8 similar to a Walkman or may -- may 9 have a loop. The loop will only work 10 with a T coil on their hearing aid. 11 It's a switch that they would flip 12 when talking on the telephone, is 13 what it was developed for. They have 14 to flip that switch in order to pick 15 up a signal from the loop on the 16 transmitter, using the assistive 17 listening devices. If the hearing 18 aid doesn't have a T coil, they can't 19 use the loop. So you have to 20 consider what kind of hearing aids 21 they have. 22 Their fluency in a sign system, 23 meaning American Sign Language, 24 signed English, cued speech, any kind 25 of manual system like that. If you 1 have someone who lost their hearing 2 recently or they've always been oral 3 and now want to learn sign language 4 and they've taken ASL1, well, their 5 signing skills are not going to be 6 fluent enough yet for them to benefit 7 from having an ASL interpreter in the 8 classroom. 9 So again, you want to make sure 10 the student's most fluent means of 11 communication is what you're working 12 with when you're providing the 13 accommodation. I have had students 14 say, "I want the interpreter in the 15 room because that'll help me learn 16 sign language faster." And while I 17 can understand the argument, my 18 point, as a disability service 19 provider, coordinator, is to make 20 sure that the student is getting the 21 information. If I am giving it to 22 them in a language that they are not 23 fluent in, if I have an ASL 24 interpreter when they're just 25 learning that, they're not getting 1 all the information they need. We 2 would need to look at other ways of 3 ensuring that they're getting the 4 information. 5 You also need to look at their 6 fluency in English. One of the major 7 things to look at if you're 8 considering using speech to text 9 transcription is: How well does the 10 student read English? Because those 11 words are going to be coming on the 12 screen pretty quickly. Let's say 13 we're talking 90 words a minute. 14 They're still coming on the screen 15 pretty quickly. The student needs to 16 be able to read and comprehend at 17 that speed. And for a lot of 18 students that are deaf, if they did 19 not -- if they lost their hearing 20 before they learned English, if they 21 are using a sign system as their 22 primary means of communication, 23 especially ASL, then English really 24 is a second language for them. 25 Imagine if the only way that you 1 could learn a language was by reading 2 it. You could never hear it; you 3 could never speak it. You had to 4 learn French or German or whatever 5 that you don't speak right now. You 6 had to learn it only by reading. 7 It's difficult because you're not 8 fluent in this language. It's 9 difficult for you to read in this 10 language. So you probably don't 11 really enjoy reading in this other 12 language because it's a struggle for 13 you. It becomes a cycle. If you 14 don't practice it by reading a lot, 15 you're not going to improve in that 16 language. And because you're not 17 improving in the language, you don't 18 enjoy reading in it because it's 19 difficult for you to do, and it 20 becomes a huge cycle. 21 Of course, I'm making 22 generalizations. There are deaf 23 people who are prelingually deaf with 24 outstanding English skills. But I 25 want you to understand why it's so 1 difficult for so many. It's because 2 they're learning a second language 3 and they can only do it by reading. 4 Another problem that sometimes 5 comes in -- and I'm slightly 6 sidetracked here, but another reason 7 that many students have difficulty 8 with English is depending on what age 9 they lost their hearing, what age 10 were they identified as having 11 hearing loss, and how soon was it 12 before they learned any language, 13 including, of course, American Sign 14 Language. There have been studies 15 that show if you haven't started 16 learning a language by the time 17 you're two or three years old, the 18 brain does not form the connections 19 that make it easy to learn a 20 language. It's very important, for a 21 later language development, that 22 children with a hearing loss are 23 identified at an early age and that 24 they get some form of language. 25 Sign language seems to be a 1 clear option at that early age. 2 Sometimes parents are concerned 3 about, "Well, if they learn sign 4 language, they're never going to 5 learn to talk." It's almost the 6 opposite. They need the foundation 7 of a language, any language, at that 8 early age, and that makes it easier 9 to learn another language later on. 10 But in talking about the 11 student's fluency in English and to 12 understand why so many deaf students 13 do have difficulty with English, if 14 they're not fluent English readers, 15 if they can't read and comprehend at 16 the speed of -- of the captioning, 17 that may not be the best option for 18 them. 19 Of course, looking at things 20 like what age did the person lose 21 their hearing is also going to have 22 an effect on which system you use. 23 Okay. So you've got to look at 24 every student as an individual. Now, 25 you might even have one student who's 1 getting an interpreter in this class, 2 and that same student is getting a 3 speech to text transcriptionist in 4 another class. 5 The next thing is the course 6 characteristics. What are things 7 about the class that they're taking 8 that may influence which option you 9 use? How important is it that that 10 exact word be used when -- in this 11 class? If it's very important that 12 the exact wording is used, the 13 captioning may be a very good option. 14 Of course, interpreting the signs, 15 unless you're doing signed exact 16 English, one sign can have several 17 English words associated with it. 18 The interpreter can finger spell and 19 get the exact word across, but you 20 might want to consider the option of 21 the transcriptionist because that's 22 going to give you the exact words 23 that the teacher uses. If you're 24 doing a higher level class, like law 25 school with a lot of technical words 1 or medical school with a lot of 2 technical words, upper level, 3 graduate level classes where the 4 actual terminology is extremely 5 important, that might be something 6 you would want to consider the speech 7 to text transcriptionist for. 8 You also want to consider: How 9 difficult is the content to read? 10 For example, math. I'm going to 11 drive our captionist crazy today, but 12 here's an example. You're taking a 13 math class and the teacher says, "Y 14 equals the quantity X squared minus 15 three over the square root of 3 minus 16 7 cubed." Okay. Read that and 17 understand it. Math is very 18 difficult to do with a speech to text 19 transcriptionist. It's much easier 20 to do with an interpreter. If the 21 student doesn't understand sign 22 language, you might have to be 23 creative in other ways. It's 24 something to consider. 25 If you have linguistics, that's 1 incredibly difficult to sign. It 2 would be much easier to do with the 3 speech to text transcriptioning. You 4 have to look at the course. You 5 might have a student who signs and 6 has decent English skills who's 7 taking linguistics and algebra. They 8 might have a captionist for 9 linguistics and an interpreter for 10 algebra. 11 Don't think globally where 12 you're saying, "This student gets an 13 interpreter. This student gets 14 transcriptioning." 15 You need to look at: How is the 16 course set up? Is it mostly straight 17 lecture or is there a lot of group 18 discussion? Is there a lot of small 19 group work? I had a student who was 20 doing elementary education, and one 21 of the classes that she had to take 22 was basically how to teach a P.E. 23 class. And she typically used 24 realtime captioning, used CART at 25 that time. But yet in this class, 1 they would talk about what activity 2 they were going to do and which 3 muscles did it benefit and what was 4 the student supposed to get out of 5 this, and then they would go off and 6 play the game. And the teacher would 7 stop them in the middle of the game 8 and explain something that came up. 9 And it was extremely difficult to do 10 with the captioning, because it's not 11 like they can be out there running 12 around with theirs computer tied 13 around their neck so they know what's 14 going on. So you've got to look at: 15 How is the class set up to run? 16 Also, distance learning. If 17 it's distance learning, how is it 18 going to be done? And again, I'm not 19 giving you specific answers because 20 so much of it depends on how the 21 class is set up. Are we looking at 22 distance learning as turning to cable 23 TV and watching the teacher at the 24 same time on TV every week? Are we 25 talking about you never actually see 1 the teacher and everything is done 2 through readings online? It's just 3 really, really going to depend, but 4 it's something you need to think 5 about. 6 Okay. So that's pretty much 7 what I wanted to present today, is 8 not so much to give you all the 9 answers but to present you with the 10 options and to know that there's more 11 out there than just, "Oh, they're 12 deaf, they get an interpreter," and 13 that you need to consider all the 14 options, characteristics of the 15 student, and characteristics of the 16 course and the classroom and the 17 teacher in determining which service 18 might be best for a particular 19 student in a particular classroom. 20 So I'm pretty much wrapping up 21 here and would be glad to take any 22 questions or comments that have come 23 in. 24 >> LAUREL: Dawn, do we have 25 some questions? 1 >> DAWN: Yeah, we have three 2 right now. The first is: What is 3 considered an undue financial burden 4 for a private university for a 5 hearing impaired student? 6 >> BETH: I don't know a whole 7 lot about private universities. But 8 I can tell you, to my knowledge, a 9 school has never gotten off not 10 providing -- I'm talking in circles. 11 Basically, a school has never been 12 excused from providing services based 13 on financial burden. When it is 14 looked at, it's not just what's the 15 budget of your department or your 16 division. Or in some cases it's not 17 even what's the budget of your 18 college. It can be what's the budget 19 of your system. It's what's the 20 educational budget of your state. Of 21 course, that would apply to a 22 state-funded school. 23 If you were a very small private 24 college with very small numbers, you 25 might have an argument for not 1 providing services based on financial 2 burden. But to my knowledge, no one 3 has ever succeeded with that 4 argument. They've always been 5 required to provide services unless 6 something new has come out that I 7 haven't heard about. 8 >> DAWN: Are you ready for the 9 next one? 10 >> BETH: Sure. 11 >> DAWN: Can you tell me what 12 you think the best alternative of 13 using a sign language interpreter 14 would be for upper-level math and 15 science with lab courses? We are 16 spending 90K for one full-time 17 hearing impaired student, for 18 interpreter services, and my 19 institution would like to find a cost 20 effective way to continue to serve 21 this student well. 22 BETH: Can you just -- that was 23 for upper level math and science 24 courses? 25 >> DAWN: Yes, upper level math 1 and science with lab courses. 2 >> BETH: I can't think of 3 anything, honestly. Even if your -- 4 even if the speech to text 5 transcriptioning would be effective 6 -- and like I said before, it's 7 extremely hard to use it in a math 8 class. And depending -- in a lab, 9 it's very difficult. And there 10 really isn't a better option I can 11 think of for interpreters. But even 12 if speech to text worked, you're not 13 going to save any money. CART 14 providers actually tend to be more 15 expensive than interpreters. And in 16 some locations, depending on where 17 you are, the C-Print and Type Well 18 may save you a little money, but 19 they're being paid comparable rates 20 to interpreters in most places. 21 So I understand the financial. 22 A lot of times the administrators 23 freak out when they see the bills 24 coming in. I've dealt with that 25 everywhere I've worked. But I can't 1 think of another option. 2 Again, I'm going on very little 3 information. I don't know the 4 student, I don't know the set-up of 5 the classroom and that sort of thing. 6 But based on the little bit of 7 information that I have, if the 8 interpreters have been successful, if 9 the student signs and they use 10 interpreters, I can't think of a more 11 appropriate service. 12 And even looking at some of the 13 options, it's not going to save you 14 any money. The only thing is if they 15 had enough hearing that an assistive 16 listening device worked for them. 17 But it doesn't sound like this person 18 has that much hearing. But that's 19 the only thing that I can think of 20 that would be any cheaper. 21 Unfortunately, it's an expensive 22 service, but that's how it is. 23 >> LAUREL: Beth, along those 24 lines, can you give us an idea of 25 what -- what we could expect to pay 1 for the different categories of 2 interpreters? 3 >> BETH: It's so hard to do 4 that because this is a nationwide 5 broadcast. I guess it could be 6 international; I don't know if we 7 have anybody outside the United 8 States listening. But the rates are 9 going to drastically vary. But there 10 was an interpreter rate survey done a 11 few years ago, and you can get to 12 that -- it was done by one of the 13 other regions of PEPNET, Midwest 14 Center for Postsecondary Outreach, 15 M.C.P.O. I don't have their website 16 off the top of my head, but if you go 17 to pepnet.org and you link over to 18 MCPO, you can see some interpreter 19 rates from a survey that they did a 20 few years ago, that -- that they have 21 links there. 22 LAUREL: In Texas, we're looking 23 at -- I can't remember how much we 24 paid`-- even in Houston, it was -- I 25 can't remember. 1 BETH: I know the rates have 2 recently gone up quite a bit. 3 LAUREL: It's expensive. 4 BETH: Yes, it is a very 5 expensive service. And one thing I 6 hadn't mentioned is if you have a 7 very long class. There's some 8 generalizations here again. You have 9 to look at the individual situation. 10 Let's say you have a class once a 11 week that's three hours long. One 12 interpreter is not going to be able 13 to do a three-hour class. You need 14 to be teaming it, which means two 15 interpreters for the whole time are 16 being paid. They'll swap out about 17 every 15 or 20 minutes, depending on 18 the interpreter and depending on the 19 class. They'll swap so they can stay 20 fresh. After a while, I mean, 21 interpreting is mentally tiring as 22 well as physically tiring. Because 23 you are translating into a different 24 language, it takes a lot of brain 25 power. After a while, the accuracy 1 of your interpretation goes down 2 because you're simply tired, and then 3 we are not meeting our obligation of 4 providing an accurate message. So 5 teaming is something that's 6 important. 7 Now, you might have a lab that 8 goes for three hours where most of 9 the time the student is working 10 independently with maybe just a 11 little comment from the teacher here 12 and there, asking a question, where 13 one interpreter would be fine because 14 they're not interpreting for three 15 hours straight. Maybe it's ten 16 minutes here, nothing for 20 minutes, 17 another five minutes there, that sort 18 of thing. On the other hand, you 19 might have a class that meets only 20 for an hour, but it's highly 21 technical, where normally one person 22 could handle a one-hour class. 23 Linguistics is an example of that. 24 Or perhaps a class that's loaded with 25 a lot of names and dates; that's just 1 a difficult class. You might need 2 two interpreters even in a shorter 3 class. 4 Again, you need to look at the 5 individual class. But keep in mind 6 that if you're having to hire team 7 interpreters, that doubles your rate 8 for that time period, because you 9 have two interpreters. 10 LAUREL: Dawn, next question. 11 >> DAWN: Sure. What would you 12 recommend to accommodate a deaf 13 student who does not sign in math 14 classes? The student uses an F.M. 15 system, but computer notetaking 16 doesn't seem to be the best tool for 17 the job. Thanks for your input. 18 BETH: Okay. If they're using 19 an F.M. system and they're able to 20 hear the teacher, in other words, 21 it's a successful device for them, it 22 makes life a little easier. What I 23 would do probably, based on limited 24 information, is use the F.M. system 25 and have a notetaker to make sure 1 they're getting down all of the 2 information accurately. If the F.M. 3 system is mostly helpful, it helps 4 some but it's not helping enough to 5 get them all of the information or 6 there's still some misunderstandings, 7 things that they mishear, what you 8 might want to do is have a notetaker 9 who is sitting right next to them and 10 taking the notes so the student can 11 see the notes as they're taking it. 12 So as the teacher is saying, you 13 know, "X plus 3 quantity squared," 14 the notetaker is writing it down in 15 the correct mathematical format and 16 they're seeing it at the same time 17 that they're hearing it. 18 One thing about notetakers is 19 how they're done. Some schools will 20 use volunteer notetakers who are 21 other students in the classroom. We 22 do this for some of our students. We 23 provide like NCR notebook paper, like 24 carbon paper. That is given to 25 another student in the class so the 1 other student can take notes 2 normally. And at the end of the 3 class, they separate it, they each 4 get a copy, and the student gets 5 their notes immediately. 6 Some schools will reward those 7 students one way or another, give 8 them a stipend: "If you take notes 9 for this student consistently the 10 whole semester, we'll give you 11 $50.00." Or "We'll give you a 12 voucher to the bookstore." Or "You 13 can earn service learning credits by 14 doing this." Other schools, it just 15 depends, might have a paid notetaker. 16 So you know, someone who -- for 17 example, if you were with this 18 particular student, if the F.M. 19 system was helpful but it wasn't 20 enough of an accessibility 21 accommodation on its own, I would get 22 at least a classmate's notes to make 23 sure they didn't mishear something. 24 But if it's not working sufficiently 25 for them to depend on it completely, 1 and you wanted to have a notetaker 2 sitting next to them, taking the 3 notes where they could see it as it 4 was being talked about, I would 5 probably pay that person. That's my 6 own opinion. 7 But another student in the class 8 needs to be focusing on their own 9 learning, too. That kind of 10 notetaking is more directed solely 11 toward that student and getting them 12 access realtime into the classroom. 13 It's going to depend on your 14 school policy whether the notetakers 15 are paid, whether they're volunteers, 16 whether they're students in the 17 class, students that aren't in the 18 class, whatever. There's lots of 19 ways to do that. Sometimes the 20 notetaker might be the sole 21 accommodation, and sometimes it could 22 be combined with one of these other 23 services. That just reminded me 24 about that -- about notetaking. 25 LAUREL: Beth, I've got a 1 question for you. 2 >> BETH: Okay. 3 LAUREL: I know in public 4 schools, they have designated school 5 personnel who work with a student and 6 the student's parents to plan 7 accommodations as well as other 8 support for the public school 9 student. Am I correct that at the 10 college level, some of that service 11 is provided through the kinds of work 12 you do? 13 >> BETH: You should go back and 14 listen to my broadcast last month. 15 For those of you who missed it last 16 month, I talked about transition from 17 high school to college and some of 18 the differences between how services 19 are provided in high school and how 20 they are provided in college. And 21 because we have a little time left 22 and there's no questions at the 23 moment, I'll give you a little recap 24 of those issues that will address 25 your question. 1 LAUREL: Okay. 2 >> BETH: Up through high 3 school, students are covered under 4 the Individuals with Disabilities 5 Education Act. In college they're 6 covered under the Americans with 7 Disabilities Act. And there are 8 differences between the two laws. 9 And there's a lot more than I'm going 10 to have time to go into right now, 11 but one of the differences is how 12 services are arranged and who 13 provides them and what kinds of 14 services can be offered. Up through 15 high school, most of the services are 16 arranged by the`-- and determined by 17 the school and the parents and the 18 counselors and the teachers. The 19 students often are peripheral to that 20 process. 21 I've had students that have 22 never been to an ARD meeting. They 23 really don't understand their 24 disability; they don't understand 25 accommodations. They may not realize 1 that what they got in high school 2 might be different from what other 3 people were getting. 4 Once you get to college, the 5 determination of services is done 6 between the student and the 7 disabilities office. Parents are 8 only there if the student invites 9 them. And we can't work with the 10 parents without the student present. 11 So it really is determined between 12 the student and the Disability 13 Services Office. 14 Some of the services that they 15 received in high school are not going 16 to be available in college. And some 17 of those services would be like an 18 in-class aide or an assistant that 19 goes with them from class to class. 20 Not so much for the deaf and hard of 21 hearing students, but -- possibly for 22 them as well, but for students with 23 other disabilities, their 24 accommodation might be that they get 25 less or different homework or they 1 get a different test or fewer 2 questions on their test. You know, 3 if it's multiple choice, one of the 4 wrong answers is marked off so they'd 5 have fewer answers to choose from. 6 That sort of thing is not going to 7 happen in college. 8 In college, the student has to 9 take the same tests, do the same 10 homework, take the same courses as 11 everybody else. There's not Special 12 Ed. Sometimes students in high 13 school go to a special education 14 classroom, smaller, more individual 15 attention. Not in college. It's 16 going to be the same. 17 So I believe your question was: 18 Who provides those services? 19 Services are going to be arranged 20 through the Disability Services 21 Office at the campus. And the 22 appropriate services will be 23 determined through the student and 24 that office, but realize that some of 25 the services the student may have 1 gotten used to in high school are not 2 going to be provided at the college 3 level. 4 LAUREL: The other thing I was 5 getting to -- now, I've got a lack of 6 familiarity with voc. rehab. Some of 7 my colleagues receive support from 8 voc. rehab. To what extent can voc. 9 rehab be used to underwrite some of 10 the expenses? 11 >> BETH: That's going to depend 12 on your state. It's like both 13 colleges and universities and 14 rehabilitation agencies have both 15 been told to provide interpreters for 16 their students/clients. But one of 17 the questions -- I haven't answered 18 all the questions from last month's 19 webcast yet, but one of the questions 20 was: Is there a law that says 21 universities and colleges must pay 22 for interpreters? My answer is going 23 to be something along the lines of: 24 Colleges and universities must make 25 their programs accessible. It 1 doesn't say you must pay for them, 2 but you have the responsibility for 3 making them accessible. Rehab 4 agencies -- and I don't have a 5 citation on this, but apparently, 6 Janet Reno had said some years ago 7 that rehab agencies will pay for 8 interpreters for the students that 9 are their clients. So we're both 10 being told you have to do this. So 11 that's why so many states have an 12 agreement where the colleges and 13 universities have gotten together 14 with the Department of 15 Rehabilitation, or whatever it's 16 called in their state, the name tends 17 to vary a little bit, and come up 18 with some sort of plan. 19 In some states, the Department 20 of Rehab pays the full bill. In some 21 states it's split half and half. In 22 some states, you know, it's a flat 23 rate. Rehab will say, "We'll pay you 24 this much money for every course our 25 client is taking, to contribute 1 toward the cost of interpreters or 2 whatever services they get." So it's 3 going to depend on your state's 4 interagency agreement. 5 LAUREL: In your experience, do 6 you get many students who are voc. 7 rehab clients? 8 BETH: Oh, yes. 9 >> LAUREL RICHARDS: Does voc. 10 rehab in Texas underwrite many -- or 11 any -- or what expense? 12 BETH: With our school -- I'm 13 not sure of the wording on a 14 statewide agreement, but we receive a 15 flat rate of so much money, and I 16 couldn't tell you the number. 17 LAUREL: Per student? 18 BETH: Per student, per course. 19 If you have a deaf student who uses 20 interpreters, who's one of their 21 clients, who wants to take one 22 course, they'll get one amount of 23 money. If a student is taking three 24 courses, we'll get three times that 25 amount. So they pay us a flat rate. 1 It doesn't come close to paying the 2 full cost of the interpreters, but 3 every little bit helps. 4 Other states, I believe -- like 5 Alabama is one like where the rehab 6 pays for the full interpreter cost. 7 It's going to depend on the 8 interagency agreement in your state. 9 Some states don't have an agreement 10 at all. So rehab is a possibility 11 for getting some help on paying for 12 interpreters, but it's going to 13 depend on where you are. 14 LAUREL: At the same time, I 15 know in most states, they have a 16 financial aid program or gets a grant 17 from NIDRR to help underwrite 18 expenses associated with -- well, 19 it's called financial assistance. To 20 what extent can those monies be used 21 for college students? 22 >> BETH: I don't know the 23 answer about that grant program, 24 sorry. That might be something to 25 look into, but I have not heard of 1 that being used to help offset 2 interpreter cost. I guess it's 3 possible it might be used to help buy 4 assistive listening devices. But 5 because I haven't worked on that 6 grant, I don't have a good answer on 7 that one. 8 LAUREL: But the hardware might 9 be -- 10 BETH: For an F.M. system, for 11 an assistive listening device, it's 12 possible. I mean, I can't tell you. 13 Don't go off and say, "Beth said 14 you'll pay for this," because I don't 15 know what the restrictions are on how 16 that money is spent. It can 17 certainly be looked into. I don't 18 want my name taken in vein when I 19 don't know -- I don't have a firm 20 answer. Any other questions come in? 21 >> DAWN: No, I don't have any 22 questions that have come in. I do 23 have one person that sent in just a 24 message saying that on the last 25 webcast that you did, you were going 1 to have a tip sheet related to 2 students. 3 >> BETH: Yes, I sent in that 4 website. Was it not posted? 5 LAUREL: Well, both Dawn and I 6 are substituting today. 7 >> DAWN: That's it on the 8 questions. And I'll double-check on 9 that and get that posted for you. 10 BETH: If you want to do a 11 little hunting, I can tell you how to 12 find the tip sheets, but I did send 13 in the website for -- to be posted to 14 the ILRU site. 15 LAUREL: I suspect they did it. 16 Dawn and I are your second stringers. 17 We're not affiliated with DLRP. 18 BETH: Right. Well, if you go 19 to the PEPNET website, something on 20 there -- I don't have a computer in 21 front of me -- something about 22 products at a glance, and that should 23 be able to lead you to it. 24 The other thing is do a search 25 for NETAC. And NETAC is the one that 1 develops the tip sheet. They 2 are associated with R.I.T., Rochester 3 Institute of Technology. If you get 4 to the NETAC website, you'll find the 5 tip sheets there as well. Or e-mail 6 me and I'll send you the link 7 directly. 8 >> DAWN: It'll be up there in a 9 little bit. 10 BETH: I sent it a couple of 11 weeks ago. 12 LAUREL: Before we go, I know 13 there are a number of research and 14 training centers that are focused on 15 different aspects of deafness and 16 hard of hearing. Are you familiar 17 with those in terms of people being 18 able to benefit from the research 19 that's being done in these areas? 20 I'm not. 21 >> BETH: Well, like I said, the 22 most -- I'm mostly associated with 23 PEPNET. And I'm not sure who our 24 audience is today, if it's disability 25 counselors or parents or K through 1 12. I'm not sure who all is out 2 there. 3 But if you are a teacher, 4 counselor, rehab counselor, anyone 5 working with a student at a 6 postsecondary institution -- it 7 doesn't even have to be a college or 8 university. It could be a trade 9 school, some kind of an internship 10 program, anything that could be 11 considered educational and it's after 12 high school, or if you're a parent or 13 if you're a high school counselor 14 working with deaf students and 15 they're starting to think about 16 college, to help prepare them for the 17 transition into college. Really, 18 even if you're a student yourself and 19 you have some questions, that's what 20 we're here for. So I want to make 21 sure that you know that we're 22 available. We are free to you all 23 because we're paid by a federal 24 grant. We have books and CDs and 25 videos that we can distribute to you 1 for free or very little cost, like 2 five dollars for duplication, that 3 sort of thing, that can help you with 4 the information you're looking for. 5 I want you to know we're here; you 6 can use us. 7 If you're in Texas, I'm your 8 person, so please feel free to call 9 me, e-mail me, whatever. I will warn 10 you all that I will not be in the 11 office next week. But after that, I 12 promise to have a quick turnaround to 13 any questions you might have. 14 >> LAUREL RICHARDS: Am I 15 correct that the handout materials on 16 the website provide a summary of the 17 program in different states and how 18 to access them? 19 BETH: I'm not sure. Are you 20 talking about the tip sheets I was 21 referring to? 22 LAUREL: No, this is a 23 description of the NETAC. 24 BETH: The NETAC, that is one of 25 four regions of PEPNET that I 1 mentioned. If you go to the 2 www.pepnet.org, it'll tell you about 3 what PEPNET is, what kind of services 4 we can provide, and how to contact 5 the person for your state. Some 6 people cover more than one state. 7 Texas is huge, so I just have Texas. 8 But there are other -- several states 9 might share a person, just depending 10 on what region you're in. But it'll 11 tell you how to find the person 12 responsible for your state that you 13 can call with those types of 14 questions, to ask for resources, to 15 ask for a training, would you like me 16 to do a training for your staff and 17 faculty or for the counselors in your 18 region. That's what we do, so don't 19 be afraid to call us. 20 LAUREL: It's a marvelous 21 resource. Is it funded through IDEA? 22 BETH: No. IDEA is K through 23 12. It's funded by the Department of 24 Education among others. There's like 25 three different things that 1 collaborate to fund us, and I can't 2 remember them. I know the Department 3 of Education is one of them. 4 LAUREL: We'll give credit right 5 now to -- 6 BETH: Go to the pepnet website. 7 It'll give you all of the details. 8 I'm calling you from out of town 9 right now, so I don't have all of my 10 resources at my fingertips. 11 LAUREL: Beth, this has just 12 been terrific. Do we have any other 13 information that we need to present 14 to the audience? We can have that 15 posted on the website. 16 BETH: I have some other 17 websites I promised to refer you to 18 regarding C-Print and Type Well. 19 There's a new organization that just 20 started up to support all speech/text 21 transcriptionists, regardless of 22 whether you're CART or C-Print or 23 Type Well. It's a sort of a 24 non-denominational support system, 25 and I can give you that website if 1 you want to look that up. 2 I will be out of the office 3 until Friday. But I will send you 4 some more information to add to the 5 website about this webcast, to point 6 people in other directions. And 7 please, if you have a question later, 8 if you're not listening to this live 9 and you thought of a question and 10 don't have time to mail it in, please 11 either go ahead and send it on in and 12 they'll forward it to me or e-mail or 13 call me. I believe all my contact 14 information is actually already on 15 the website, but if it's not, we'll 16 make sure it gets there. 17 I pretty much will be out of the 18 office except for a very brief time 19 on this Friday. I will be gone until 20 the Monday after next. If you try to 21 contact me in the next week and a 22 half or so, I'm not going to be able 23 to get back to you. But after that, 24 I promise you a quick turnaround. 25 LAUREL: Beth, this has been 1 terrific today, a lot of information 2 and resources. And I know that on 3 Rachel's side and mine and Wendy 4 Wilkinson's behalf, we are mighty 5 grateful that you took time from the 6 Windy City. Thank you. 7 >> BETH: You're welcome. 8 LAUREL: We'll look forward to 9 getting those references and our 10 colleagues at DLRP will get those out 11 really quickly. They're an efficient 12 group of people. 13 By the way, folks, we would like 14 you to complete the evaluation for 15 this program. It's one of the links 16 on the web page. We'd welcome it 17 very much. Any recommendations for 18 improvements, future topics, would be 19 welcome. Also, I want to recognize 20 -- now, Beth, here's where I'm 21 different. I know the single source 22 of funding for this project. It's 23 NIDRR, the National Institute for 24 Disability and Rehabilitation 25 Research. It's a department of -- a 1 division of the Department of 2 Education. NIDRR is generous in 3 supporting this initiative as well as 4 the ADA technical assistance 5 projects. Also, I want to let folks 6 know that if they're interested in 7 other aspects of ADA, please don't 8 hesitate to come to the website of 9 DLRP. It's www.dlrp.org. There's 10 just terrific resources available on 11 ADA. 12 Before we close, just a real 13 quick recognition of the folks, 14 really, who made this presentation 15 possible. At ILRU, there's Marj 16 Gordon, Sharon Finney, Vinh Nguyen, 17 Dawn Heinsohn, Rachel Kosoy. And off 18 campus are Rob Dickehuth, who is 19 doing the technical, the mechanical 20 aspects of getting the telephone line 21 input turned around so that it is 22 audiocast in realtime. And the other 23 is, I believe, working on the CART 24 principles. And Sheryl Stapp is 25 today our realtime captioner. 1 Gracias to both of you all. 2 In the meantime, check back on 3 the ILRU website for future webcasts 4 on DLRP and an array of other 5 subjects as well. So good afternoon 6 to you, Beth, and our folks across 7 the country. 8 BETH: Thanks for listening. 9 LAUREL: You bet. Bye-bye. 10 BETH: Bye. 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25