NCHAT - FAQ

Here at the National Center for Hearing Assistive Technology (NCHAT) I get a lot of great questions about the latest devices to enhance hearing and where to buy them. Technology is changing rapidly and at SHHH we strive to help keep our members informed every step of the way. Karen Frohrib, our the manager of NCHAT will be sharing a response to an email or letter inquiry in every SHHH E-News.

From the NCHAT virtual mailbag...
Sometimes, people call in hopes of located a device that will alleviate a specific communication situation, but the technology it would require is just a few years ahead of our time. Fortunately a workable, if not perfect solution can often be found within the reach of our current technology.

S.V. from Montana writes:
My brother has severe hearing loss and we have trouble talking on the telephone. In person, he communicates just fine with hearing and speechreading. Over the phone, he often misunderstands what I say and we both get confused. I would like to get him a webcam that has speech recognition software and will caption whatever the other person is saying to him. I figure this way, he can hear, speechread and use the captions as a back up. Where can I buy him a internet camera software package with these features?

K.F. responds:
Your brother is lucky to have a sibling as caring as you. I like your idea for a videophone device with captioning to enable your brother to communicate effectively when using a telephone. Unfortunately, right now such a product is not available and there would be a few roadblocks to developing one with our current technology. It is very difficult to speechread a person over the internet because the mouth movements may not match the voice on his screen, depending on the speed of the server and the image would not be as clear. It is also important to remember that speechreading occurs in three dimensions in everyday life, and video is two dimensional, so the lipshapes are not identical. Achieving 'instant' captions through voice recognition software is not readily achievable in most instances. It takes several hours to 'train' voice software recognition program to understand a single persons voice to achieve a high degree of accuracy. This may work well for some applications (this commercial website lists several http://www.myicommunicator.com/. However, voice recognition software used directly by a person making a call or receiving a call isn't practical for telephone use in most cases. This may change in a few years as technology advances.

There are currently two types of phone that may be able to help you and your brother communicate more effectively on the telephone. The newest technology is a captioned telephone. With a captioned telephone, your brother call relay, then dial the phone number he wishes to call. CapTel brand telephones by Ultratec have an option that will have the telephone automatically call relay when the handset is lifted, so the caller just needs to dial the number of the person he is calling. With this service, the relay operator is 'invisible' to the person not using the captioned telephone. Both parties take turns speaking as with any phone call. The relay operator repeats everything said by the receiver of the telephone call to a voice recognition program which is trained to their voice, making corrections as necessary. People would also be able to call your brother by calling relay first. This service is not available in all areas yet, and requires a special phone. See the commercial website http://www.captionedtelephone.com

In areas where captioned telephone relay service is not yet available, it is possible to carry on a typical conversation and get captions with a two line VCO. This website from Maryland relay has a diagram on this webpage http://www.mdrelay.org/PDFs/2Rlvco.pdf