[LTA intro music]
LiveTextAccess.
Training for real-time intralingual subtitlers.
This is Unit 1. Understanding accessibility.
Element 2. Target users and their needs.
In this video lecture, we show a short interview by Darja Pajk,
a member of the Late-Deafened community from Slovenia.
My name is Piero Cavallo
from the Internationale Hochschule SDI München, in Germany.
I have prepared this video lecture
in collaboration with Rocío Bernabé Caro, also from SDI München,
and the European Federation of Hard of Hearing, in short, EFHOH.
On completion of the training sequence,
you will be able to explain the needs and preferences
of the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing, Late-Deafened, and Deaf-Blind community.
The agenda is very short.
First, I am going to introduce you Darja Pajk.
Then, I will illustrate the topics of the interview.
And finally, we will end this video lecture with a summary.
First of all, let me introduce you Darja Pajk.
Darja Pajk is from Slovenia.
She refers to herself as a late-deafened person.
She has long, red hair.
She wears a pair of glasses.
She works as occupational therapist.
Let me give you some information before watching the video.
In the video, Darja recorded herself with a webcam,
while she answers some questions that we sent to her before.
Darja speaks in English and the video has English subtitles.
In this short interview, Darja answers some questions about late-deafness.
First, she explains what late-deafness is
and the impact that late-deafness can have.
Then, Darja describes how communication works
for persons with late-deafness.
Finally, Darja talks about speech-to-text interpretation,
or real-time intralingual subtitles,
as an access service for the Late-Deafened community.
Ok, let’s watch the video now!
[Interviewer] Can you introduce yourself?
[Darja] Hello, I am Darja Pajk from Slovenia,
occupational therapist by profession
employed now for many years in an institution,
which takes care for adults with mental disabilities.
[Interviewer] When did you lose your hearing?
[Darja] I started losing my hearing progressively at the age of 23,
and at the age of 46 I become completely deaf.
This is when no Hearing Aids was able to help me anymore.
I lost my hearing as an adult,
and that was extremely hard experience for me and also my family.
[Interviewer] Can you explain what late-deafness is?
[Darja] There is a simple definition of late-deafness, in fact.
The late-deafened were born hearing, developed spoken language skills,
and lost their hearing progressively or suddenly later in life as adults.
Late-Deafened people differ from those that are born deaf
or people who are hard of hearing.
I also distinguish between people who became deaf in adulthood
but can understand speech well with the use of various implants,
and those who cannot understand it despite implants.
And that’s my big fear,
as I have a hard time imagining
how much you should change your way of communicating
and how much energy needs to be invested in being able to keep up
with what’s going on around you.
In many cases, there is no possibility of written support.
[Interviewer] What is the impact of being a Late-Deafened person?
[Darja] It is extremely difficult to accept complete hearing loss
and live with it.
Mostly because society oftentimes does not understand that this can happen
and that a Late-Deafened person still wants to be actively involved
in the same life as before,
even though
he or she might not be able to, due to the hearing loss.
In addition, of course, it affects your work
and employment opportunities,
your career prospects, the time you invest in the environment.
It is also difficult for a family that must accept the situation.
There was no exception for me either.
First, I isolated myself from the environment,
my world had become extremely diminished,
and I was in constant fear that I could not function normally
in the environment.
Of course, this affects you.
And adults who lose their hearing live in a world
that knows no hearing loss and is foreign to them.
The thing with the hearing loss is,
that you do not look like you have a disability,
people do not notice it, yet you do have it.
[Interviewer] As a Late-Deafened person,
how do you communicate with other people?
And how other people communicate with you?
[Darja] In the beginning, when I completely lost my hearing,
I was in an immense crisis
and did not know how to talk to people at all,
because I was not able to understand speech in many situations.
I was not a member of any association of Hard of Hearing or Deaf people,
nor did I know them.
Later, I joined the Slovenian organization
of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and met others there.
For the most part, however, the focus was on sign language.
I also started learning it myself,
but it was quite foreign to me
and no one in my environment spoke or knew it.
It is also slow and not rich enough in words for my needs.
Thus, I always approached people at short a distance,
I sought a peaceful environment and I helped myself with lip-reading.
Of course, I used in this time enormously powerful hearing aids
and in some situation FM and induction loops.
Several times, friends helped me by writing short summaries for me,
so I knew what the conversation was about.
I didn't even know the other methods.
I additionally checked all the information online
and tried to use as many written methods of communication as possible.
And when I saw the possibilities of speech-to-text
at the EFHOH and IFHOH conferences,
I was immensely fascinated.
For the first time in many years, I felt normal,
and I was able to follow the lecture.
I now use cochlear implant which serves me very well
and I communicate in most cases without any problems.
However, I experience some problems in crowded spaces
and when I am feeling overwhelmed.
At that time, the possibility of reading
written information or communicating in writing,
extremely helps me.
It is also possible to use additional sound amplifiers
in addition to the implant,
but despite the simplicity, this is often still difficult to do,
as you always need an additional device or an Internet connection.
Communication is best done at a normal volume of speech
in a quiet space with only one person speaking who articulates well
or at least normally.
It is helpful when the speaker faces the listener.
And also, it is very welcome
if Late-Deafened person explains about problems which he or she has.
But perfect option is,
if there is possibility for speech-to-text support
especially in noisy environment.
[Interviewer] How do you plan and organize for communication?
[Darja] In my normal life, since I have the implant,
I only make sure that the processors are always fully charged.
So, this means that if I stay overnight, I always have chargers with me.
Of course, sometimes I forget about it
and then I must return home or try to find a place
where I can buy a spare one.
I am also lucky to hear well on the phone
and I do not often need to use other devices.
But sometimes I still do have to use an additional sound amplifier
that transmits the sounds directly to the processor,
specially AudioLink and Artone 3 Max.
Thus, I need to make sure they are always fully charged
and that I have them with me.
Figuring out what exactly you need all the time and carry with you,
takes a really long time
and you are always in stress if you have everything with you,
how to connect everything so that you can hear well.
But before meetings, I always explain that I am deaf,
a cochlear implant user
and that I might not be able to understand everything properly.
I also always check where is the best position to sit
to see and hear optimally.
But now, there is quite a big problem
because of mask people wear, as they cover their mouths.
[Interviewer] Are real-time intralingual subtitles a good support
for Late-Deafened people?
[Darja] Yes, it is perfect.
As I mentioned before, with speech-to-text reporter near you,
you feel normal as you can follow and know what is going on.
And I really enjoyed in some meetings of EFHOH
where I met a speech-to-text supporter
who followed only one person
and thus also participated in social events by typing all the time.
This really made it possible to understand and socialize.
In my opinion speech-to-text reporters are a wonderful support
for Late-Deafened people.
[Interviewer] When and where do you personally use
real-time intralingual subtitles?
[Darja] Unfortunately,
the speech-to-text did not exist in Slovenia until recently.
Even in our organization of Deaf and Hard of Hearing people,
a speech-to-text reporter was not available,
and we had to reply on the induction loop at the meetings.
In 2020, however, at least in our organization,
a team was formed that performs speech-to-text at our Zoom meetings,
which is extremely welcome.
In this way, people have begun to learn what speech-to-text means
and how they can participate in events, trainings, meetings, and so on.
I do not use speech-to-text at home because it is not available,
as I said before,
nor in the study, nor in the work environment.
For me it would be useful during educational trainings, meetings.
[Interviewer] Do you have any suggestions
for current and future real-time intralingual subtitlers?
[Darja] It is extremely important for Late-Deafened people
to be able to follow the content of the conversation.
It is important to focus on the content
and there is no need to write down all the sounds.
There is also no need to correct the text,
even if someone makes a mistake and writes something wrong,
but it is necessary that the content is correct.
And I really wish
that the speech-to-text profession would spread everywhere,
and Late-Deafened people would have possibility to cooperate equal.
The summary.
To briefly sum up,
we can say that late-deafness is an impactful impairment
for the person who is experiencing the hearing loss
and his or her family too.
Then, we have seen that persons with late-deafness can use devices,
like cochlear implants,
and also benefit from sound devices, such as amplifiers.
Finally, we have seen that real-time subtitles can really help
to follow the content of a conversation
and socialize on an equal basis in different contexts.
As Darja explains,
subtitles also support the audiological treatment
for this target group.
Exercises.
The exercises for this video lecture are in the Trainer’s Guide
and the PowerPoint file.
[LTA outro music]
LTA - LiveTextAccess.
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
SDI - Internationale Hochschule.
Scuola Superiore per Mediatori Linguistici.
2DFDigital.
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.