LiveTextAccess.
Training for real-time intralingual subtitlers.
This is Unit 1.
Understanding accessibility.
Element 1.
Basic concepts.
This video lecture revolves around types of disabilities
and the concept of access services.
My name is Rocío Bernabé,
from the Internationale Hochschule SDI München, in Germany.
I have prepared this video lecture in collaboration with
the European Federation of Hard-of-Hearing, in short EFHOH.
On completion of this training sequence, you will be able to classify disabilities
by types of impairment and to explain the function of access services.
You will also learn the difference between access services
and two other terms often used in this context.
These two terms are:
assistive technologies and reasonable accommodations.
Let’s take a look at the agenda.
Firstly, we will discuss the characteristics of the term impairment as defined by
the World Health Organisation and how this term is used
in the definition of a type of disability.
Then, we will discuss how access services have emerged to provide access to content
for persons who cannot access this content in the original form.
Lastly, the video lecture will end with a summary.
Types of disability.
Article 1 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities,
in short CRPD,
explains that disability emerges when a person with a long-term impairment
encounters barriers that hinder him or her
participating effectively on an equal basis.
The underlying idea is that disability occurs in the interaction of a person
with an impairment and barriers of an environment.
The example on the screen illustrates this idea.
A wheelchair user may not be able to participate equally
on a daily-basis activity, such as travelling by train
when the only access way is stairs.
This example shows how environments can create barriers,
in this case physical barriers,
that hinder participation on an equal basis.
Disability is often linked to a type of long-term impairment.
In this sense, we often talk about sensory, physical, cognitive,
and speech disabilities.
Indeed, we could say that this is not entirely correct,
because it is not the impairment itself that causes the state of disability.
In other words, the impairment is just one part of the equation.
The International Classification of Functioning, Disability
and Health Impairment
defines "impairment" as a significant deviation
or loss in a body function or body structure.
According to this classification provided by the World Health Organisation,
such a loss or deviation can be sensory, physical, cognitive
or related to the speech.
These are the terms that we often use to label a type of disability.
Let’s take a look at them.
Sensory disabilities are related to a loss or a full loss of a sense,
be it sight, hearing, or both.
When two senses are affected, we talk about a dual sensory impairment.
This is the case of the Deafblind.
The causes of a sensory impairment can be manifold.
Some persons are born with the impairment,
while others experience the loss later in life.
This development has an impact on the communication method
that a person may prefer.
For instance, persons born deaf or with profound hearing loss
often consider sign language as their first language
compared to persons with a less severe hearing loss,
who often prefer to communicate in standard language.
Speech disabilities are related to the inability to produce a speaking voice;
this is also known as mutism,
or to the inability to articulate words or sounds.
In the same line, physical disabilities are related
to the inability to move body parts or coordinate movement
and also to paralysis.
Lastly, cognitive disabilities are related to impairments
that affect mental processes, such as perception, memory,
thinking, or understanding.
When media products and audiovisual environments
are not accessible, access services provide persons with a disability
with an alternative way to access content.
The term "access services" or "accessibility service"
is used in audiovisual media contexts
to refer to services that convey content in an alternative way.
Real-time subtitles are an example.
This access service provides persons with hearing loss
with subtitles as a written alternative
to spoken speech or other information that is conveyed aurally.
For instance, music or sounds.
Two terms which you often come across with in the context of disability and accessibility
are "assistive products" and “reasonable accommodations".
Assistive products or technologies are any devices that help persons
with a disability to perform on an equal basis
and independently in their daily lives.
Two examples are hearing devices, also called hearing aids,
and hearing loops.
You will learn more about these devices in the video lectures of Element 2
in this Unit.
Reasonable accommodation is a term that is mostly used in working
and educational contexts.
Reasonable accommodations are adjustments or modifications
that enable persons with a disability to participate on an equal basis.
For instance,
the provision of an access service in court is a reasonable accommation.
This access service can be, for example, real-time subtitles
or sign language interpreting.
The availability and interplay of assistive products,
access services and accommodations
enable inclusion through accessibility.
These terms, or these serveces are not interchangeable;
they are complementary.
Why?
Well, because each of these solutions helps
in a different way and in different situations.
Let’s take a look at some examples.
Persons with hearing loss always make an extra effort to listen and understand,
and use several communication strategies to clarify and doublecheck
that they are receiving the right message.
These strategies can be using a hearing aid,
lip-reading or reading subtitles.
Therefore, accessibility can only be possible
when all these input possibilities are available.
The reason is actually that all these possibilities
also have their limitations.
For instance, hearing aids work outside the normal hearing range
of 2 to 20dB and are noisy.
Lip-reading is only possible if the image quality is good,
and only if one person is speaking at a time.
Similarly, subtitles are fine, but only if they are correct and accurate.
An example of assistive products,
access services and reasonable accommodations
for persons with sight loss would be this one.
A university professor with sight loss uses a screen reader,
which is an assistive product,
on his or her computer to create lectures.
To work, in general.
When this professor must speak at a conference,
he or she may request the university to provide a sighted guide
who would help assist him or her with travel and navigating
the conference center.
This would be a reasonable accommodation.
Lastly, at home, this professor may use the access service
called audio description to watch a movie.
Lastly, an example that includes a person with cognitive loss.
Maybe this person does not even use any assistive products
because she or he does not have a sensory impairment.
The same person, however, may use the access service
easy-to-read subtitles to watch a documentary film,
or the news.
Similarly, a person with a cognitive loss can request their company
to provide a document in easy-to-read language
when this person needs to read and understand the content
of this document to fulfil his or her duties.
Let’s recap.
Today we have discussed that disabilities are often classified
or labeled according to the type of impairment.
We have also seen that the concept of "impairment"
in these contexts is understood
as a significant deviation or loss as defined
by the World Health Organisation.
We have also seen that in the context of disability,
this impairment must be a long-term impairment.
We have also seen that environments that have not been designed
for all persons create barriers and hinder access.
In audiovisual contexts, access services have emerged
to provide these persons with an alternative way
to access these information.
The type of access service depends on the type of disability.
I encourage you to take a look at the PowerPoint presentation
to this video lecture.
There, you can find links to some other examples
of assistive technologies and access services.
As for now, I say good-bye and many thanks.
Exercises.
The exercises for this video lecture are in the Trainer’s Guide
and in the PowerPoint file.
LTA - LiveTextAccess.
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
SDI - Internationale Hochschule.
Scuola Superiore per Mediatori Linguistici.
ZDFDigital.
The European Federation of Hard of Hearing People - EFHOH.
VELOTYPE.
SUB-TI ACCESS.
European Certification and Qualification Association - ECQA.
Co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.
Erasmus+ Project: 2018-1-DE01-KA203-004218.
The information and views set on this presentation
are those of the authors
and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion
of the European Union.
Neither the European Union institutions and bodies
nor any person acting on their behalf may be held responsible
for the use which may be made of the information contained here.