When I give a presentation, I always preface it: “I can only share my experience as a deaf person because we’re all diverse.” We’re all different. Some of us are born deaf. Some are late-deafened. Some of us wear hearing devices. Some don’t. Some of us learn to speak and read lips. Some of us … Read more
Do you caption your videos? Why or why not? Let us know in comments. World Health Organization reports that more than 5 percent of the world’s population is deaf or hard of hearing. [Source WHO] And guess what. The deaf and hard of hearing are not the main users of captions or subtitles! So captioning … Read more
I never wanted to go in business for myself. I had a great career going. I worked for the federal government straight out of college. Then worked for two major telecommunications companies for 10 years. So why would I take the chance to be self-employed? I knew from the get-go that it would be challenging … Read more
Like most of you, I rarely pay attention to commercials. (What about during the Super Bowl? Nah. Not too interested.) I zip through them. (Thank you, DVR!) If I can’t skip the commercials, I use the time to catch up on reading or play Fairway Solitaire (darn you, Gutsy McDivot!) on my phone. The Commercial … Read more
I’ve been busy over at Bionic Ear Blog as two great blog posts inspired the two recent posts. I’m sharing them here as that blog and this one have different audiences. You may be interested in learning a little more about what it’s like for a deaf person to hear and the different types of … Read more
It’s human nature for people to not look past someone’s speech to discover the person first. I know it because I live it. Oscar winning film, The King’s Speech, echoes this message. Zach Anner, co-winner of Oprah Winfrey’s Your OWN Show, reinforces the message that people with disabilities want others to see them as people first. … Read more
As a kid … I’ve been on both sides of the special needs parenting relationship. Well, I don’t think I was a special needs kid, but I do have a unique challenge because I’ve been deaf since birth. My parents always told my teachers to treat me like any other kid with one exception: make … Read more
Image by eyesplash Mikul via Flickr I’d love to read more stories like these two. They provide valuable insight in human nature, perception and more. The Executive and the Branch Manager The first lesson is in perception. I caught this nugget in a New York Times article [Link: Jack Scharff]. It’s a valuable lesson involving … Read more
Limits. That stayed out of my vocabulary even though I first appeared in Harris Hospital in Fort Worth without hearing. My life became about proving I could do as well as anyone, if not better. This nurtured my competitive spirit, which worked for and against me in my life. The phone had the honor of … Read more
This post will show you what I said and what this stuff where code [Line spoken should be, “the software heard”]. I strike out the software’s mistakes and picked [put] the correct version in practice [brackets]. Here we go… For those of you not familiar with beast to pick up where [speech to text software], … Read more