HOH-LD-News
Vol. 41, Issue 10
December 5, 2009

Copyright (C) 2009 Hearing Loss Web, LLC. All rights reserved.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Table of Contents
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

- Article 1: Google and YouTube: Leading the Way for Internet
Captioning, Part 2

- Article 2: Mark Ross on Veterans and Aural Rehabilitation

- Article 3: FDA Launches New Hearing Aid Website

- Article 4: Short Takes

Our advertisers make it possible for us to provide HOH-LD-News
as a free service. Please let them know you appreciate their
support, and please mention that you saw their message in
HOH-LD-News.

- Advertisers in this Issue
      First Premium Placement:
           YOUR AD HERE
      Second Premium Placement:
           Storewide 15% Discounts and Free Shipping
      Third Premium Placement:
           Hearing Aid Repairs and Reduced Price Hearing Aids
           from Hearing Haven
      Classified Section:
           One Online Store and four Employment Opportunities

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Contact information and disclaimers are at the end of this newsletter.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


----------------------------------------------------------
YOUR AD HERE
----------------------------------------------------------
If you're interested in getting your message out to people who
are hard of hearing or late deafened, and to the people who
serve them, you might consider a premium ad in this newsletter!
Our rates are surprisingly affordable and we reach the movers
and shakers in the hearing loss world. And this newsletter
(unlike some of the others) is strictly "opt-in", which means
that everyone who receives it WANTS to receive it!

For more information please point your browser to:
http://www.hearinglossweb.com/res/pub/nsltr/hln/adv.htm
or contact larry@...
----------------------------------------------------------


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Article 1: Google and YouTube: Leading the Way for Internet
Captioning, Part 2
By Cheryl Heppner
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Editor: The good news is that Google intends to caption YouTube
videos. The bad news is that they will be using speech
recognition software to do it. Don't get me wrong! I'm a big fan
of speech recognition. But I have yet to be convinced that a
speech recognition program can do a decent job of
transliterating the speech of any random person. I'd love to be
wrong on this!

Anyway, here's Cheryl with her report on the meeting where this
announcement was made. This is part two of three parts.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ken Harrenstien Introduces Captioning Features

Vint Cerf introduced Ken Harrenstein, and engineer who is deaf,
who worked with him on DeafNet, an early attempt to bring the
Internet to people who are deaf.  He called Ken the strongest
proponent and technical contributor to access initiatives who is
passionate about this work.

Ken, who gave his presentation in sign language, talked of his
frustration during the many years he has pursued the goal of
access to the Internet.  He reviewed what is already available,
beginning with YouTube, where videos can display captions and
subtitles. There are options to increase or decrease the size of
the captions and also to add or remove the panel behind the
captions.

Next Ken demonstrated the ability to change the captions to
another of the 51 different languages that YouTube supports.
This translation feature is still in beta testing but I enjoyed
making use of my rusty French when he selected that.  He
demonstrated Japanese as well.

Hidden Treasure in Captioning

For a great incentive for anyone to use captioning, nothing
beats the fact that the text makes a video instantly searchable.
To show the power this brings to the Internet, Ken did a search
for "one small step for man" on You Tube, and from among the
options he chose a captioned video of the famous walk on the
moon.

Since their launch for the first time in 2008, the growth in
captions on YouTube has surprised and pleased Ken.  He said
there are now hundreds of thousands of captioned videos.  I did
a lazy woman's search to check this out, going to YouTube.com,
entering the word "captions" in the search box and clicking to
see the result.  Holy cow!  There were 20 pages of results with
a total of about 32,300.

Challenges Remain

There are still some hurdles before captions can begin to be
commonplace on the Internet.  Ken did a nice job of sidestepping
the geek talk to help us visualize the Internet as a bunch of
pipes that water runs through with 20-23 hours' worth of videos
being uploaded each minute.  Then he showed a photo of Niagara
falls to demonstrate how only a small amount of those hours are
captioned.  "Who's going to bottle that water?" he asked.

And then he answered.  This Google/YouTube event celebrated the
launch of speech recognition and YouTube to make captioning
widespread. Thirteen educational partners have joined forces for
an early launch.  Among the partners are University of
California at Berkeley and at LA, Columbia University, Duke,
MIT, Stanford, Yale, and University of New South Wales. Google
will add more partners as quickly as they can.

You can see Ken in his black Google tee shirt at the beginning
of a year-old video "YouTube Captions and Subtitles":
http://www.youtube.com/t/captions_about.

NVRC Note:
This morning we heard from several people who were listening to
news on the radio.  The Google/YouTube event was covered by WAMU
and NPR, and it included mention of NVRC. You can click on the
link below to hear the audio and read the transcript of some
WAMU coverage.

Despite New Technology, Internet Accessibility Lags for Deaf and
Hard of Hearing (http://wamu.org/news/09/11/20.php) Source:
wamu.org
November 20, 2009 - By Sabri Ben-Achour

~~~~~

(c)2009 by Northern Virginia Resource Center for Deaf and Hard
of Hearing Persons (NVRC), 3951 Pender Drive, Suite 130,
Fairfax, VA 22030; www.nvrc.org.   703-352-9055 V, 703-352-9056
TTY, 703-352-9058 Fax. You do not need permission to share this
information, but please be sure to credit NVRC.


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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Article 2: Mark Ross on Veterans and Aural Rehabilitation
By Mark Ross
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Editor: I can't imagine a better person to write on this topic.
Mark is an audiologist with a long-term hearing loss, so he
knows the topic from both perspectives. Furthermore, was both a
VA client and a VA audiologist a few moons ago! This article
originally appeared in "Hearing Loss" magazine, and is reprinted
with the author's kind permission.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It is generally agreed that the profession of Audiology had its
genesis during WW II. It arose from the efforts of the U.S.
Military to provide Aural Rehabilitation programs for the
servicemen who suffered a hearing loss. The programs developed
were "state of the art," for the time, with the government
providing all it could and all it knew to the people who
returned with a service related hearing loss. Clearly, the
potential impact of a hearing loss was recognized and the
government accepted its obligation to try and ameliorate the
resulting handicap.  Nothing was "too good for the boys," and
cost seemed an irrelevant consideration. Later, upon their
discharge, the VA picked up the responsibility for taking care
of these men.

The programs that the VA developed were also pretty much "State
of the Art." I trained and worked for the VA myself at the end
of the 50's and the early 60's and I know that we provided our
patients with whatever was felt they needed. The VA also served
as the primary incubator in which many future Audiologists
received their first clinical experiences. The testing and HA
selection procedures initially developed during WW II were
adopted and extended by the VA. During this period, in my
experiences with the VA as a patient and as an Audiologist, the
profession expanded and matured while still providing an example
of excellent clinical services that should be emulated.  While
there was not as much available then to ameliorate the potential
impact of a hearing loss as there is now - either with
prosthetic devices or rehabilitation procedures - the VA did
what it could with the resources it had available.

It is because of this background and history that I was so
interested in listening to Captain Mark Brogan at the HLAA
convention. Out of all the injuries that he sustained, he
considered his hearing loss as "definitely one of the most
troublesome."  We all know how often the effects of a hearing
loss -  this "invisible handicap" in the words of Rocky Stone -
is underestimated. For somebody like Mark Brogan, its impact is
compounded by the traumatic brain injury he also suffered.
While he received many months of therapy for his physical and
brain injuries, there was evidently nothing comparable provided
to him for his hearing impairment. For this he was given hearing
aids, which fortunately have proved to be very helpful, but more
can and should be done.  Being the person he is, he has taken
the initiative in seeking other sources of help and support,
such as his local HLAA chapter. But the provision of other
necessary technical and support services and should not be left
to happenstance, but should be built into the system, much the
same as these services are provided for someone with a physical
impairment.

While I am absolutely not comparing the handicap or impact of a
missing limb and a hearing loss - that would be arrogant and
presumptuous of me - I am recommending that the same therapeutic
model be followed for those with a hearing loss.  Someone fit
with an artificial limb is not dismissed from therapy once he or
she receives the prosthesis, but rather is entered in a
full-course therapy program to teach the person how best to use
the prosthesis.  And so should it be for military veterans who
sustain a hearing loss while on active duty. The main challenge
is not the content of such an Aural Rehabilitation program -
there are a number of good models out there - but the necessity
to fully appreciate the fact that a hearing loss is not a
trivial condition, one that can be "treated" simply and
appropriately just with hearing aids. While these may be an
absolute necessity, they are insufficient. We may not be able to
resurrect the kind of Aural Rehabilitation program I received
from the military many years ago, but we can resurrect an
attitude that viewed a hearing loss as a potentially serious
condition - and then take the appropriate steps  to ameliorate
its effects.


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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Article 3: FDA Launches New Hearing Aid Website
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Editor: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which regulates
hearing aids, has launched a new website with the intention of
assisting consumers to make good decisions about hearing aids.
It's really quite comprehensive and looks like a great
educational tool, particularly for folks who are new to hearing
loss and hearing aids. Here's the information from the FDA.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has launched a new Web
site that will benefit current and potential users of hearing
aids.

FDA regulates hearing aids, which it defines as sound-amplifying
devices designed to aid people who have impaired hearing.

"People who already use a hearing aid know that selecting the
right one is not a simple process," says Eric Mann, M.D., Ph.D.,
deputy director of FDA's Division of Ophthalmic, Neurological,
and Ear, Nose, and Throat Devices. "There are many issues to
consider. Also, current users of hearing aids want to know about
the latest types and technology, and how to properly maintain
the ones they already have."

While more than 35 million Americans have some degree of hearing
loss, a 2004 survey conducted by the National Hearing Institute
found that slightly more than 11 million hearing instruments
were being used nationwide.

An Array of Topics

Mann says the new Web site will cover the different types and
styles of hearing aids, how to obtain one, and steps to remember
and consider before purchasing a hearing aid.

It has information on hearing aid safety, using cell phones
while wearing a hearing aid, and on other products and
procedures available to people who want to improve their
hearing. It also stresses the difference between hearing aids,
which FDA regulates as medical devices in order to assure their
safety and effectiveness, and personal sound amplification
products, which are not subject to this type of regulation.

Mann says the new Web site is not intended to provide medical
advice. "If you have questions about your hearing, the best
source of information is your hearing health care professional,"
he says.

The site includes sections on
* general information on hearing aids
* types of hearing loss
* types and styles of hearing aids
* how to get a hearing aid
* benefits and safety of hearing aids
* hearing aids and cell phones
* other products and procedures that people can use to improve
hearing

From the Checklist

The Web site also has a checklist of steps to consider before
purchasing hearing aids. Items on this checklist include:

* Get a check up. Go to a doctor-preferably an ear, nose, and
throat physician-to get a medical exam. This exam will rule out
any medical reason for your hearing loss which would require
medical or surgical treatment. You will receive documentation of
your medical exam and a statement that says you are a candidate
for hearing aids.

* Consider going to an audiologist. Audiologists can perform an
exam to determine the type and amount of your hearing loss.

* Buy your hearing aid from a licensed hearing health care
professional. This will typically be an audiologist; a hearing
aid dispenser; or an ear, nose, and throat physician.

* Be careful when selecting your hearing aid. Select one that is
convenient and easy for you to use. Buy hearing aids with
features that meet your needs in daily listening activities.

* Be sure you know how to care for your hearing aid. Ask your
hearing health care professional to show you how to clean it and
replace the batteries. Ask for a copy of the written
instructions.

* Ask about a trial/adjustment period. Most manufacturers
provide a period during which your hearing aid can be returned
for a refund.

* Check out the warranty. Like any other product you purchase,
be aware of what parts or services are covered.

You can visit the new Web site, which was launched on October
20, 2009, at http://tinyurl.com/plunn3


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Article 4: Short Takes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Editor: Here are our picks of some additional stories that you
may find interesting. For more, please point your browser to:
http://www.hearinglossweb.com/news/curr.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Seattle Live Theaters Provide Captioning for Holiday Shows

Thanks to the good efforts of a number of Seattle's live
theaters, those of us with hearing loss won't need to have a
holiday season full of nothing but silent nights, as we'll have
a menu of captioned performances available to us. [snip]  The
captioning at all three theaters is being done by c2net from
Boston, which converts the script into text form in advance,
then displays the captions on a portable reader board visible
from a bloc of seats set aside for those who request them.  The
captioning effort has been partially funded by the Theatre
Development Fund from New York City. The captioning efforts were
undertaken after requests from the Washington State
Communication Access Project (Wash-CAP), a non-profit membership
corporation whose purpose is to improve access to Washington's
public places for people with hearing loss.

http://tinyurl.com/ycgrztr

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Audiologists break away, move hearing-aid sales online

Two young audiologists from Denver hope to change the way
hearing aids are sold in America and to help revive a sector of
health care that's been hit hard by the recession. Don Kim, 28,
and Justin Piraino, 29, recently left private audiology
practices to start what they say is the first doctor-owned
hearing aid website. Launched on June 9, HearingAidDocs.com is
designed to give patients with hearing loss a wider selection
and better value than most brick-and-mortar audiology practices
- which are increasingly owned by hearing aid manufacturers. Kim
said such practices limit selection to their own product line
and keep prices prohibitively high for many consumers. By
contrast, customers of HearingAidDocs enter results from hearing
evaluations and choose from a range of hearing aids available
from different manufacturers. Kim said customers can save
anywhere from $500 to $1,000 by using the service. As a national
organization, HearingAidDocs.com has enough buying power to
obtain hearing devices cheaper than competitors.

http://denver.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2009/07/13/story14.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Parents Struggle with Implant Decision for Daughter

My only thought when my baby was first handed to me was: 'Please
tell me my child can hear.' I've been profoundly deaf from birth
and even though I can speak clearly, I rely on lip-reading to
understand. I'm the only deaf person in my family and before
Lauren was born I had tests done with a top geneticist who told
me I wasn't a carrier of any known deafness gene. He gave me
just a 2-5 per cent chance of having a deaf baby, just
marginally higher than a hearing mother. So when Lauren failed
the newborn hearing test at just 24 hours old, I was devastated.
All my anxieties of being cut-off and bullied as a child came
flooding back. I was scared of what lay ahead for Lauren, but I
was also distraught for myself. My childhood and early adult
life had been a constant fight to fit in. I'd managed to put all
that behind me and was happily married with a successful career
as a TV producer and a fledgling acting career with a role in
Holby City.

http://tinyurl.com/yzsll2y

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Classifieds
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One Online Store and four Employment Opportunities (Ads appear
after this brief table of contents.)

WCI. Your Single Source for Assistive Technology
FREE GROUND SHIPPING IN DECEMBER
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Employment Opportunity 1
Exciting Career Opportunities at GLAD
Various Southern California Locations

Employment Opportunity 2
Teaching Positions at GSD
Georgia School for the Deaf
Cave Spring, GA

Employment Opportunity 3
Director of Employment Services
Corliss Institute, Inc.
Warren, RI

Employment Opportunity 4
Director of Student Admissions
The Pennsylvania School for the Deaf
Philadelphia, PA


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-------------------
Employment Opportunity 1
Exciting Career Opportunities at GLAD
Various Southern California Locations
-------------------

Exciting Career Opportunities at GLAD

GLAD is an Affirmative Action Employer with equal opportunity
for men, women and people with disabilities. For more
information on the following positions, please go to:
www.gladinc.org. The status of all positions is: Regular,
Full-time, Non-Exempt, Full Fringe Benefits unless otherwise
noted. All positions are open until filled.

* Job Developer/Interpreter - Pacoima, CA
* Job Developer/Interpreter - Rancho Cucamonga, CA
* Community Interpreter - Los Angeles, CA

If interested for any of these positions then please submit
resume and application to:

Jeff Fetterman
Human Resources Specialist
Greater Los Angeles Agency on Deafness, Inc.
2222 Laverna Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90041
V/TDD: (323) 550-4207
Fax #: (323)550-4204
E-mail: jfetterman@...


-------------------
Employment Opportunity 2
Teaching Positions at GSD
Georgia School for the Deaf
Cave Spring, GA
-------------------

Position 1
High School Math Teacher

Minimum Qualifications: Must possess or be eligible to obtain
Georgia Professional Standards Commission Certification in the
area of Special Education Deaf Education AND High School Math.
Sign language proficiency at the "Intermediate Level" as
measured by the Sign Communication Proficiency Instrument is
required. Note: Candidates selected for employment must meet the
"Highly Qualified" provision of the federal No Child Left Behind
Act. Note: Must submit required certification documentation with
resume and cover letter or application.

For Additional Information:
http://www.hearinglossweb.com/res/emp/gsd_math.htm

~~~~~

Position 2
Substitute Teacher (Part-Time/Hourly)

Minimum Qualifications: High School Diploma or GED and four
hours of initial substitute teacher training provided by a local
education agency in Georgia and sign language proficiency at the
"Intermediate Level" as measured by the Sign Communication
Proficiency.

For Additional Information:
http://www.hearinglossweb.com/res/emp/gsd_sub.htm


-------------------
Employment Opportunity 3
Director of Employment Services
Corliss Institute, Inc.
Warren, RI
-------------------

Overall job function: Agency liaison for all client work and
business functions. To structure the developing Program into 3
separate services. To oversee Project staffing and performance.
To monitor and assess Department activities/goals, and to
research additional options. To assure that the Program services
and goals result in meaningful work in settings that are not
segregated or sheltered.  This position reports to the Executive
Director.

Requirements:  M.A. desired, B.A. minimum. Experience with State
Rehabilitation agency procedures/policies for Supported Work.
Knowledge of deaf adults with developmental disabilities,
fluency in ASL required/capacity to gain these skills.
PR/networking skills with employers, state and private
employment groups and others.  Business skills and supervisory
experience as well as ability to assess viability in the areas
of client need, project viability (revenue, expenses, etc.) and
public response. Excellent writing skills, familiarity with
Word, Excel and basic programs, and the ability to be productive
in team and independent settings.

Examples of Job Duties:
1. Works with Executive Director, Senior Team and
funders/partners to develop and refine Program.
2.  Recruits and interviews needed consultants, staff, interns
and volunteers.
3. Develops sales initiatives, customers, jobs and related
Program components through research, email, phone/videophone/TTY
and attendance at various events.
4. Develops Program promotional materials and events for
increasing public and consumer use.
5. Liaison to external entities.
6. Internal and formal Reports other documents to track Program
progress and outcomes.
7. Program and expenditure reports, revenue projections and
other documents.
8. Other duties as determined by supervisor/agency need.

This is a full-time exempt position, and includes full agency
fringe and benefits. Salary - high $40's. Limited relocation
funds. Position funded for one year; contingent upon generated
revenue.

Cover letter/resume to:
Jean Moniz, Director of HR
Corliss Institute, Inc.
290 Main Street
Warren, RI 02885
jmoniz@...
FAX to: 401-245-8023


-------------------
Employment Opportunity 4
Director of Student Admissions
The Pennsylvania School for the Deaf
Philadelphia, PA
-------------------

This is a full-time 12-month position.  At least a Master's
Degree in Psychology or related field. Possess proficiency in
sign language.  Supervise a full array of clinical
student/family support services.  Collaborate with LEAs and
families regarding enrolment and coordinate the PDE approval
process. Coordinate the scheduling and completion of Biannual
and Triennial multidisciplinary evaluations ERs, IEPs and
standardized school-wide assessment services.  Collaborate on
the transition to school age process and the ESY/Summer Program.

Deadline for submission is December 11, 2009.

Send letter of interest and resume/vitae to:
Jane Homka
Executive Secretary
The Pennsylvania School for the Deaf
100 W. School House Lane
Philadelphia, PA 19144
e-mail: jhomka@...


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Contact Information and Disclaimers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We are very interested in your comments concerning the content
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Copyright (C) 2009 Hearing Loss Web, LLC. All rights reserved.

HOH-LD-News
Vol. 41, Issue 9
November 28, 2009

Copyright (C) 2009 Hearing Loss Web, LLC. All rights reserved.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Table of Contents
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

- Article 1: Google and YouTube: Leading the Way for Internet
Captioning - Part One

- Article 2: Twenty-six Charged in Video Relay Fraud Scheme -
Part Two

- Article 3: Words and Gestures Translated by Same Brain Regions

- Article 4: Short Takes

Our advertisers make it possible for us to provide HOH-LD-News
as a free service. Please let them know you appreciate their
support, and please mention that you saw their message in
HOH-LD-News.

- Advertisers in this Issue
      First Premium Placement:
           YOUR AD HERE
      Second Premium Placement:
           Fantastic Thanksgiving Day Discounts
      Third Premium Placement:
           Hearing Aid Repairs and Reduced Price Hearing Aids
           from Hearing Haven
      Classified Section:
           One Online Store and four Employment Opportunities

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Contact information and disclaimers are at the end of this newsletter.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


----------------------------------------------------------
YOUR AD HERE
----------------------------------------------------------
If you're interested in getting your message out to people who
are hard of hearing or late deafened, and to the people who
serve them, you might consider a premium ad in this newsletter!
Our rates are surprisingly affordable and we reach the movers
and shakers in the hearing loss world. And this newsletter
(unlike some of the others) is strictly "opt-in", which means
that everyone who receives it WANTS to receive it!

For more information please point your browser to:
http://www.hearinglossweb.com/res/pub/nsltr/hln/adv.htm
or contact larry@...
----------------------------------------------------------


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Article 1: Google and YouTube: Leading the Way for Internet
Captioning - Part One
By Cheryl Heppner
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Editor: The good news is that Google intends to caption YouTube
videos. The bad news is that they will be using speech
recognition software to do it. Don't get me wrong! I'm a big fan
of speech recognition. But I have yet to be convinced that a
speech recognition program can do a decent job of
transliterating the speech of any random person. I'd love to be
wrong on this!

Anyway, here's Cheryl with her report on the meeting where this
announcement was made.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Today was my day to learn cool and exciting new stuff.  I went
with Debbie Jones, NVRC's Technology Specialist to a special
event by Google and YouTube at which they would be making an
announcement.  The invitation had hints it would be something
important to do with accessibility.  YouTube is all about video
so immediately I wondered if they'd had a breakthrough with
captioning.  How could I stay away?

I arrived at the Google office on New York Avenue in DC and got
a hug from Vint Cerf, Google's Chief Internet Evangelist, while
I was fresh off the elevator, followed another just moments
later from his wife Sigrid. The Google folks were easy to pick
out.  They had black tees with a fingerspelled Google, each
letter in a different color.

In the meeting room I found Debbie and lots of fellow advocates
- Nancy Bloch, Brenda Battat, David Nelson, Shane Feldman, Cindy
King, Lise Hamlin, Bob Davila, Tom Wlodkowski, Rosaline
Crawford, Jenifer Simpson and so many more.

Introduction by Jonas Klink

We all settled in our chairs to hear Jonas Klink, the
Accessibility Product Manager at Google start things up by
introducing Vint as a critical element for his unwavering
support of an accessible Internet.  Vint took the stage and
spoke of Google's goal to organize the world's information and
make it universally accessible for everyone.  He said that
access was personally important to him as both he and Sigrid
have hearing loss, and joked that Sigrid hears so well now with
her two cochlear implants that he had to buy a bigger house so
she could have bigger parties.

Background Information from Vint Cerf

YouTube has shown that there is an extraordinary desire by the
world's population to express itself through video. Over 20
hours of video are uploaded each minute to YouTube. It has
become a powerful medium of personal expression and an equally
powerful medium of political expression, giving an individual
the ability to tell the rest of the world what is happening.
But accessing You Tube has also posed a huge challenge for
individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing as well as
individuals who are blind or visually impaired.

Google has a history of coming up with new ideas and then
putting out a product for beta testing to see what people will
do with it.  The company is constantly seeking all kinds of ways
to help people find information, and making that information
internationally available and usable.

Vint showed a chart with data about the languages most used by
people on the Internet.  In the top spot was English, followed
by Chinese.  But the chart also noted the number of people with
disabilities, including the large number of people who are deaf,
blind, have poor vision, and limited dexterity.

In trying to improve accessibility, Google Apps has been
focusing on keyboard access.  Google's Android was released as
open source to encourage developers to add functionality.  Its
Chrome browser is also an open platform.

"Google is fully prepared to pursue accessible features in all
its products and services," Vint said.

For more details on the presentations at the announcement, watch
for Part 2!

For the official scoop from the Official Google Blog:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/

~~~~~

(c)2009 by Northern Virginia Resource Center for Deaf and Hard
of Hearing Persons (NVRC), 3951 Pender Drive, Suite 130,
Fairfax, VA 22030; www.nvrc.org.   703-352-9055 V, 703-352-9056
TTY, 703-352-9058 Fax. You do not need permission to share this
information, but please be sure to credit NVRC.


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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Article 2: Twenty-six Charged in Video Relay Fraud Scheme -
Part Two
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Editor: Video Relay Service (VRS) is a wonderful service for
people with hearing loss who are fluent in sign language. It's
much closer to "functional equivalence" than anything available
to most folks with profound hearing loss who don't sign. CBS
News reports that fees approaching $400 per hour generate about
$800 million a year in revenues for the companies who provide
VRS, an amount which far exceeds the cost of all other types of
relay service combined! It appears that some companies have
resorted to fraudulent means to get their hands on some of that
cash. Here's the release from the Department of Justice.

This is part two of two parts.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Each of the indictments alleges that the defendants made, caused
others to make, or processed fraudulent VRS calls that were then
submitted to the FCC for reimbursement. These calls, often
referred to as "r calls," "rest calls" or "run calls," served no
purpose other than to generate call minutes that would be billed
to the FCC's VRS Fund.

In the first indictment, Viable Communications Inc. and four
Viable executives have been charged with fraudulently generating
VRS call minutes and obtaining reimbursements from the FCC for
those calls. Viable owner and CEO John Yeh, 62, of Potomac, Md.;
Viable Chief Operating Officer Joseph Yeh, 64, of Potomac;
Viable Assistant Vice President Anthony Mowl, 25, of Rockville,
Md.; and Viable Human Relations Director Donald Tropp, 25, of
Rockville, have been charged in a six-count indictment with
conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government and to submit false
claims; submitting false claims; conspiracy to commit mail
fraud; and mail fraud.

In the second indictment, Master Communications, KL
Communications and Mascom owners and employees have been charged
with generating fraudulent VRS minutes. According to the
indictment, these companies operated VRS call centers for Viable
that generated and processed a large volume of fraudulent VRS
calls, which were then submitted to the FCC's TRS Fund
Administrator for reimbursement. Master Communications, KL
Communications and Mascom owner and employee Kim E. Hawkins, 46,
of Las Vegas; Master Communications employee and KL
Communications owner and employee Larry Berke, 62, of Phoenix;
KL Communications employee Dary Berke of Phoenix; KL
Communications and Master Communications employee Lisa Goetz,
43, of Phoenix; and Mascom Marketing and Advertising Director
David Simmons, 43, of Austin; have been charged in a six-count
indictment with conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government and to
submit false claims; submitting false claims; conspiracy to
commit mail fraud; and mail fraud.

In the third indictment, DHIS owners and employees have been
charged with generating and processing a large volume of
fraudulent VRS calls. According to the indictment, DHIS operated
VRS call centers for Viable that generated and processed
fraudulent VRS calls. DHIS co-owners Irma Azrelyant, 47, of
Basking Ridge, N.J., and Joshua Finkle, 41, of New York; DHIS
video interpreter Natan Zfati, 31, of Brooklyn, N.Y.; DHIS
bookkeeper Oksana Strusa, 35, of Jersey City, N.J.; DHIS video
interpreter Alfia Iskandarova, 29, of Brooklyn; and DHIS video
interpreter Hennadii Holovkin, 36, of Philadelphia; have been
charged in a six-count indictment with conspiracy to defraud the
U.S. government and to submit false claims; submitting false
claims; conspiracy to commit mail fraud; and mail fraud.

In the fourth indictment, ICSD owners and employees have been
charged with generating and processing a large volume of
fraudulent VRS calls. According to the indictment, ICSD operated
VRS call centers for Viable that generated and processed a large
number of fraudulent VRS calls. The indictment also alleges that
ICSD owners and employees engaged in sham "marketing calls" for
the stated purpose of marketing VRS services, but for the
alleged true purpose of fraudulently generating additional VRS
minutes. ICSD co-owners Yosbel Buscaron, 25, and Lazaro
Fernandez, 35, both of Hialeah, Fla.; ICSD call center manager
Wanda Hutchinson, 35, of Pembroke Pines, Fla.; ICSD call center
manager Jessica Bacallo, 23, of Miami; and ICSD marketing
manager Kathleen Valle, 23, of Miami; have been charged in a
six-count indictment with conspiracy to defraud the U.S.
government and to submit false claims; submitting false claims;
conspiracy to commit mail fraud; and mail fraud.

In the fifth indictment, defendants Benjamin Pena, Robert Z.
Rubeck and Tamara Frankel have been charged with generating
fraudulent VRS calls. According to that indictment, Pena was
allegedly paid by Viable owner and CEO John Yeh to generate
fraudulent VRS minutes. Also according to the indictment, Pena
allegedly paid Rubeck and Frankel to make VRS calls for the
purpose of generating those fraudulent minutes. Pena, 34, of
Scottsdale, Ariz.; Rubeck, 34, of Surprise, Ariz.; and Frankel,
28, also of Surprise; have been charged in the six-count
indictment with conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government and to
submit false claims; submitting false claims; conspiracy to
commit mail fraud; and mail fraud.

Deaf Studio 29 owners and employees have been charged in a sixth
indictment with generating fraudulent VRS calls. According to
the indictment, Marc Velasquez Verson, Ellen Thompson and Doris
Martinez allegedly organized and paid employees to use a
particular VRS provider to make run calls. That provider would
pay the defendants approximately 20 to 25 percent of the money
the provider received from the FCC for the calls generated by
the defendants. Velasquez, 56, of Oswego, Ore.; Ellen Thompson,
43, of Lake Oswego, Ore.; and Doris Martinez, 51, also of
Oswego; were charged in the six-count indictment with conspiracy
to defraud the U.S. government and to submit false claims;
submitting false claims; conspiracy to commit wire fraud; and
wire fraud.

All of the indictments seek criminal forfeiture from each of the
charged defendants.

An indictment is merely an accusation, and defendants are
presumed innocent unless proven guilty.

These cases are being prosecuted by Assistant Chief Hank Bond
Walther and Trial Attorney Brigham Cannon of the Criminal
Division's Fraud Section, with the investigative assistance of
the FBI's Washington Field Office, USPIS and FCC-OIG.


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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Article 3: Words and Gestures Translated by Same Brain Regions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Editor: This sure makes a lot of sense to me. I thought learning
ASL was very much like learning a spoken language, so it sounds
right that the same parts of the brain are doing the processing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Your ability to make sense of Groucho's words and Harpo's
pantomimes in an old Marx Brothers movie takes place in the same
regions of your brain, says new research funded by the National
Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD),
one of the National Institutes of Health.

In a study published in this week's Early Edition of Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), researchers have
shown that the brain regions that have long been recognized as a
center in which spoken or written words are decoded are also
important in interpreting wordless gestures. The findings
suggest that these brain regions may play a much broader role in
the interpretation of symbols than researchers have thought and,
for this reason, could be the evolutionary starting point from
which language originated.

"In babies, the ability to communicate through gestures precedes
spoken language, and you can predict a child's language skills
based on the repertoire of his or her gestures during those
early months," said James F. Battey, Jr., M.D., Ph.D., director
of the NIDCD. "These findings not only provide compelling
evidence regarding where language may have come from, they help
explain the interplay that exists between language and gesture
as children develop their language skills."

Scientists have known that sign language is largely processed in
the same regions of the brain as spoken language. These regions
include the inferior frontal gyrus, or Broca's area, in the
front left side of the brain, and the posterior temporal region,
commonly referred to as Wernicke's area, toward the back left
side of the brain. It isn't surprising that signed and spoken
language activate the same brain regions, because sign language
operates in the same way as spoken language does - with its own
vocabulary and rules of grammar.

In this study, NIDCD researchers, in collaboration with
scientists from Hofstra University School of Medicine,
Hempstead, N.Y., and San Diego State University, wanted to find
out if non-language-related gestures - the hand and body
movements we use that convey meaning on their own, without
having to be translated into specific words or phrases - are
processed in the same regions of the brain as language is. Two
types of gestures were considered for the study: pantomimes,
which mimic objects or actions, such as unscrewing a jar or
juggling balls, and emblems, which are commonly used in social
interactions and which signify abstract, usually more
emotionally charged concepts than pantomimes. Examples include a
hand sweeping across the forehead to indicate "it's hot in
here!" or a finger to the lips to signify "be quiet."

While inside a functional MRI machine, 20 healthy,
English-speaking volunteers - nine males and 11 females -
watched video clips of a person either acting out one of the two
gesture types or voicing the phrases that the gestures
represent. As controls, volunteers also watched clips of the
person using meaningless gestures or speaking pseudowords that
had been chopped up and randomly reorganized so the brain would
not interpret them as language. Volunteers watched 60 video
clips for each of the six stimuli, with the clips presented in
45-second time blocks at a rate of 15 clips per block. A mirror
attached to the head enabled the volunteer to watch the video
projected on the scanner room wall. The scientists then measured
brain activity for each of the stimuli and looked for
similarities and differences as well as any communication
occurring between individual parts of the brain.

The researchers found that for the gesture and spoken language
stimuli, the brain was highly activated in the inferior frontal
and posterior temporal areas, the long-recognized language
regions of the brain.

"If gesture and language were not processed by the same system,
you'd have spoken language activating the inferior frontal and
posterior temporal areas, and gestures activating other parts of
the brain," said Allen Braun, M.D., senior author on the paper,
"But in fact we found virtual overlap."

Current thinking in the study of language is that, like a smart
search engine that pops up the most suitable Web site at the top
of its search results, the posterior temporal region serves as a
storehouse of words from which the inferior frontal gyrus
selects the most appropriate match. The researchers suggest
that, rather than being limited to deciphering words alone,
these regions may be able to apply meaning to any incoming
symbols, be they words, gestures, images, sounds, or objects.
According to Dr. Braun, these regions also may present a clue
into how language evolved.

"Our results fit a longstanding theory which says that the
common ancestor of humans and apes communicated through
meaningful gestures and, over time, the brain regions that
processed gestures became adapted for using words," he said. "If
the theory is correct, our language areas may actually be the
remnant of this ancient communication system, one that continues
to process gesture as well as language in the human brain."

Dr. Braun adds that developing a better understanding of the
brain systems that support gestures and words may help in the
treatment of some patients with aphasia, a disorder that hinders
a person's ability to produce or understand language.

NIDCD supports and conducts research and research training on
the normal and disordered processes of hearing, balance, smell,
taste, voice, speech and language and provides health
information, based upon scientific discovery, to the public. For
more information about NIDCD programs, see the Web site at
www.nidcd.nih.gov.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) - The Nation's Medical
Research Agency - includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a
component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting
basic, clinical and translational medical research, and it
investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both common
and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its
programs, visit www.nih.gov.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Article 4: Short Takes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Editor: Here are our picks of some additional stories that you
may find interesting. For more, please point your browser to:
http://www.hearinglossweb.com/news/curr.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Deanne Bray - A Hearing Loss Hero

Deanne Bray has hearing loss as do the characters she plays. She
is most recently known for her starring role in the PAX-TV
series, Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye. The show was loosely based on the
true experiences of Sue Thomas, a woman with a profound hearing
loss, who worked for the FBI in 1978 doing uncover surveillance
by reading lips. Deanne played the character in the current time
and her character worked with the FBI agents on the field more
than the real Sue. The real Sue mostly watched videotapes
transcribing suspects' statements by reading lips. [snip]
Deanne's new series, Heroes, is a serial saga about people all
over the world discovering that they have superpowers and trying
to deal with how this change affects their lives. Deanne will
play Emma, a woman with a hearing loss who will discover her
power throughout the series. She has already appeared in the
September 28, October 5, October 12, shows; her role as Emma
will continue.

http://tinyurl.com/ykq7ssu

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Keys to Successfully Living with Your Hearing Loss" Released

Neil Bauman has released his latest book, entitled "Keys to
Successfully Living with Your Hearing Loss", which he describes
as follows: "Hearing loss cuts you off from the hearing world in
many ways, often leaving you depressed and with little
self-esteem. The good news is you don't have to let things
remain that way. When you put into practice the six keys
explained in 'Keys to Successfully Living with Your Hearing
Loss', a happier and more confident "you" will rejoin the
hearing world-on your own terms."  It's available at Neil's
website

http://www.hearinglosshelp.com/products/books.htm#keys

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hearing Loss and the Perception of Speech

A general strategy underlying hearing aid design is the
selective amplification of portions of the input sound spectrum
to compensate for a loss of hearing sensitivity. Major advances
in engineering and fitting procedures have resulted in more
successful hearing aid use in recent years (Kochkin, 2005).
Nevertheless, the effortless understanding of speech enjoyed by
people with normal hearing is not realized by many individuals
with sensorineural hearing loss-even with amplification-because
the effects of the loss are not limited to a reduction in
sensitivity.

http://tinyurl.com/yahssl3


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Classifieds
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One Online Store and four Employment Opportunities (Ads appear
after this brief table of contents.)

WCI. Your Single Source for Assistive Technology
FREE GROUND SHIPPING IN DECEMBER
http://www.weitbrecht.com

Employment Opportunity 1
Exciting Career Opportunities at GLAD
Various Southern California Locations

Employment Opportunity 2
Teaching Positions at GSD
Georgia School for the Deaf
Cave Spring, GA

Employment Opportunity 3
Director of Employment Services
Corliss Institute, Inc.
Warren, RI

Employment Opportunity 4
Director of Student Admissions
The Pennsylvania School for the Deaf
Philadelphia, PA


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Employment Opportunity 1
Exciting Career Opportunities at GLAD
Various Southern California Locations
-------------------

Exciting Career Opportunities at GLAD

GLAD is an Affirmative Action Employer with equal opportunity
for men, women and people with disabilities. For more
information on the following positions, please go to:
www.gladinc.org. The status of all positions is: Regular,
Full-time, Non-Exempt, Full Fringe Benefits unless otherwise
noted. All positions are open until filled.

* Job Developer/Interpreter - Pacoima, CA
* Job Developer/Interpreter - Rancho Cucamonga, CA
* Community Interpreter - Los Angeles, CA

If interested for any of these positions then please submit
resume and application to:

Jeff Fetterman
Human Resources Specialist
Greater Los Angeles Agency on Deafness, Inc.
2222 Laverna Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90041
V/TDD: (323) 550-4207
Fax #: (323)550-4204
E-mail: jfetterman@...


-------------------
Employment Opportunity 2
Teaching Positions at GSD
Georgia School for the Deaf
Cave Spring, GA
-------------------

Position 1
High School Math Teacher

Minimum Qualifications: Must possess or be eligible to obtain
Georgia Professional Standards Commission Certification in the
area of Special Education Deaf Education AND High School Math.
Sign language proficiency at the "Intermediate Level" as
measured by the Sign Communication Proficiency Instrument is
required. Note: Candidates selected for employment must meet the
"Highly Qualified" provision of the federal No Child Left Behind
Act. Note: Must submit required certification documentation with
resume and cover letter or application.

For Additional Information:
http://www.hearinglossweb.com/res/emp/gsd_math.htm

~~~~~

Position 2
Substitute Teacher (Part-Time/Hourly)

Minimum Qualifications: High School Diploma or GED and four
hours of initial substitute teacher training provided by a local
education agency in Georgia and sign language proficiency at the
"Intermediate Level" as measured by the Sign Communication
Proficiency.

For Additional Information:
http://www.hearinglossweb.com/res/emp/gsd_sub.htm


-------------------
Employment Opportunity 3
Director of Employment Services
Corliss Institute, Inc.
Warren, RI
-------------------

Overall job function: Agency liaison for all client work and
business functions. To structure the developing Program into 3
separate services. To oversee Project staffing and performance.
To monitor and assess Department activities/goals, and to
research additional options. To assure that the Program services
and goals result in meaningful work in settings that are not
segregated or sheltered.  This position reports to the Executive
Director.

Requirements:  M.A. desired, B.A. minimum. Experience with State
Rehabilitation agency procedures/policies for Supported Work.
Knowledge of deaf adults with developmental disabilities,
fluency in ASL required/capacity to gain these skills.
PR/networking skills with employers, state and private
employment groups and others.  Business skills and supervisory
experience as well as ability to assess viability in the areas
of client need, project viability (revenue, expenses, etc.) and
public response. Excellent writing skills, familiarity with
Word, Excel and basic programs, and the ability to be productive
in team and independent settings.

Examples of Job Duties:
1. Works with Executive Director, Senior Team and
funders/partners to develop and refine Program.
2.  Recruits and interviews needed consultants, staff, interns
and volunteers.
3. Develops sales initiatives, customers, jobs and related
Program components through research, email, phone/videophone/TTY
and attendance at various events.
4. Develops Program promotional materials and events for
increasing public and consumer use.
5. Liaison to external entities.
6. Internal and formal Reports other documents to track Program
progress and outcomes.
7. Program and expenditure reports, revenue projections and
other documents.
8. Other duties as determined by supervisor/agency need.

This is a full-time exempt position, and includes full agency
fringe and benefits. Salary - high $40's. Limited relocation
funds. Position funded for one year; contingent upon generated
revenue.

Cover letter/resume to:
Jean Moniz, Director of HR
Corliss Institute, Inc.
290 Main Street
Warren, RI 02885
jmoniz@...
FAX to: 401-245-8023


-------------------
Employment Opportunity 4
Director of Student Admissions
The Pennsylvania School for the Deaf
Philadelphia, PA
-------------------

This is a full-time 12-month position.  At least a Master's
Degree in Psychology or related field. Possess proficiency in
sign language.  Supervise a full array of clinical
student/family support services.  Collaborate with LEAs and
families regarding enrolment and coordinate the PDE approval
process. Coordinate the scheduling and completion of Biannual
and Triennial multidisciplinary evaluations ERs, IEPs and
standardized school-wide assessment services.  Collaborate on
the transition to school age process and the ESY/Summer Program.

Deadline for submission is December 11, 2009.

Send letter of interest and resume/vitae to:
Jane Homka
Executive Secretary
The Pennsylvania School for the Deaf
100 W. School House Lane
Philadelphia, PA 19144
e-mail: jhomka@...


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Contact Information and Disclaimers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We are very interested in your comments concerning the content
and format of this newsletter. We want this publication to be
useful to you. Please send your comments and suggestions to:
hearinglossweb@...

Visit our Website at: http://www.hearinglossweb.com

To subscribe to this newsletter, email
HOH-LD-News-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. Yahoogroups will respond
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To unsubscribe to this newsletter, email
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Archives for this newsletter are on our website at:
http://www.hearinglossweb.com.
Click on "Free Email Newsletter" in the header.

Advertising information for HOH-LD-News and Hearing Loss Web is
available at http://www.hearinglossweb.com/misc/adv/adv.htm.

Publication of articles or advertisements does not constitute an
endorsement of the products or services offered, nor of the
companies that offer them.

Copyright (C) 2009 Hearing Loss Web, LLC. All rights reserved.

HOH-LD-News
Vol. 41, Issue 8
November 21, 2009

Copyright (C) 2009 Hearing Loss Web, LLC. All rights reserved.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Table of Contents
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

- Article 1: Digital Television Transition Forum - Part Five

- Article 2: Twenty-six Charged in Video Relay Fraud Scheme - Part One

- Article 3: DHHCAN Releases New Consumer Action Guide on Air Travel

- Article 4: Short Takes

Our advertisers make it possible for us to provide HOH-LD-News
as a free service. Please let them know you appreciate their
support, and please mention that you saw their message in
HOH-LD-News.

- Advertisers in this Issue
      First Premium Placement:
           YOUR AD HERE
      Second Premium Placement:
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      Third Premium Placement:
           Hearing Aid Repairs and Reduced Price Hearing Aids
           from Hearing Haven
      Classified Section:
           One Online Store and six Employment Opportunities

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Contact information and disclaimers are at the end of this newsletter.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


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are hard of hearing or late deafened, and to the people who
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For more information please point your browser to:
http://www.hearinglossweb.com/res/pub/nsltr/hln/adv.htm
or contact larry@...
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Article 1: Digital Television Transition Forum - Part Five
By Cheryl Heppner
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Editor: Folks who are interested in the technical side of
hearing loss solutions love the biennial TDI Convention. Cheryl
Heppner hosted a Digital Television Transition Forum at the 2009
convention, and it was every bit as informative as you would
expect it to be. And she wrote it up so we could all benefit
from it!

This is Part Five of Five Parts

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

WHO TO CONTACT ABOUT CAPTIONING PROBLEMS

Paul:

I was watching ESPN on an HDTV.  The captions paused, so I
changed over to regular analog TV and the captions were fine.  I
called Cox cable about the problem, and was told that the blame
lay with the producer or the television set.  The manufacturer
of the television said it was not at fault. The cable company
sent me to the television station again. We have got to start
seriously working together on this, stop laying blame and
pointing fingers and get problems solved.  Is the FCC going to
take the role of refereeing this and getting everyone working
together?

Cathy Seidel:

The scenario you mentioned is one of the factors that led to the
rule adopted by the FCC in November 2008.  It says that if a
consumer comes to you with a complaint and it isn't caused at
your end, you should get that complaint to the right place.  The
rules have yet to go into effect.  That is a first step.  The
next piece is discussing more fully with the technical people
what the different possible problems are and where those
problems lie.  Working with the industry to proactively identify
the issues, we want to figure out a way that when the consumer
has a specific issue they can be directed to the right place.
This is important to the FCC and we are very committed to
addressing it.

GETTING CAPTION HELP FROM CUSTOMER SERVICE

Audience:

Andy, what is the trick to get through to customer service and
talk to the right person about a captioning problem?  I have
wasted at least an hour of my time every time I need to complain
about something. Could a hearing person get the same thing done
in ten minutes?  I go through a lot of drama with customer
service, with people who don't have the slightest clue what I'm
talking about.  I've been waiting for two months for a
technician to come to my home.  I'm not going to call them
again, because I know I'll just lose another hour.

Andy Scott:

There is absolutely no excuse for getting the runaround like
this. I don't work in that organization so I don't know what
their procedures are, but apparently they are not very good
ones.  I think that overall the industry is keen on making sure
they improve the process where customers with disabilities call
and their calls are steered to the right person.  I think there
is an earnest effort in the industry to do that, even in advance
of the complaint rules coming out.  I'm hoping it will start
improving rapidly.  I won't try to make excuses for this cable
operator.  I would be interested in knowing more about your
issues to see if I can help in some regard.

HOW TO DIRECT COMPLAINTS TO THE RIGHT PERSON

Audience:

How would a deaf or hard of hearing person know whether to
contact the cable company, the station, the television
manufacturer?  What kind of captioning errors warrant contacting
a particular entity?  What is the best way to contact them?  Do
you contact the engineering department or customer service?
Where do I start?

Andy Scott:

If you're receiving television services from a cable operator,
you should call the cable operator and give a description of the
problems you're having.  We don't want you as a customer to be
in the position where you have to figure out which one of the
entities in the delivery chain might be the source of the
problem.  Ideally the individual you contact will figure out
what the problem is and get back to you with the resolution.
We're committed to doing that.  If you're a broadcast customer,
call the station and ask them.  If you're a satellite customer,
call the satellite company.  Clearly this is not working for you
and the process has broken down.  I know the FCC is keen on this
issue and that's why they have an order out.

FINDING THE BEST CONTACT AT TV STATIONS

Audience:

Why don't local stations have an easy means for consumers to get
in touch with them?

Ann Bobeck:

That's one of the things we're working on.  A lot of stations
are starting to post information on their websites about that.
Engineers are sometimes hard to get hold of and get overwhelmed
with email, but if you're web savvy look for the consumer
relations directory or program director on the website.  They
are the ones who work to make sure the viewers are well taken
care of.  If you don't get a response, email the General Manager
and his or her staff.  I think we'll soon have some uniform best
practices to make sure information about who to contact is
available and easy to access.

Cathy Seidel:

The rule that was adopted requires that the broadcaster provide
clear contact information on who will be handling closed
captioning questions. You'll be able to find that information in
directories and online as Ann mentioned.  The commission is also
looking at ways to address the complexity in filing complaints.
One of the challenges is the need to get enough information from
the consumer to enable resolution of the problem.  Many times
specifics are important - exactly when did the problem happen,
at what time?  Exactly what was the nature of the problem.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Pam Holmes:

The movies I showed today were just a quick snapshot of what
it's like for a deaf or hard of hearing person trying to watch
TV.  They represent just a few moments in a few days, but these
problems happen every day.  It's really not possible for
consumers to file complaints every day about all that they see.
I plead with all of you that are responsible for providing
captioned programs to help clean this up so consumers don't have
to complain on everything that they see, and I applaud you for
your efforts.

Cheryl Heppner:

Thank you to both my fantastic panel and my equally fantastic
audience for their participation. In the audience and elsewhere
are a lot of people who would be happy to volunteer to be
monitors if you want to try to drill down to a specific problem
and get it resolved.

~~~~~

(c)2009 by Northern Virginia Resource Center for Deaf and Hard
of Hearing Persons (NVRC), 3951 Pender Drive, Suite 130,
Fairfax, VA 22030; www.nvrc.org. 703-352-9055 V, 703-352-9056
TTY, 703-352-9058 Fax. You do not need permission to share this
information, but please be sure to credit NVRC.


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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Article 2: Twenty-six Charged in Video Relay Fraud Scheme - Part One
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Editor: Video Relay Service (VRS) is a wonderful service for
people with hearing loss who are fluent in sign language. It's
much closer to "functional equivalence" than anything available
to most folks with profound hearing loss who don't sign. CBS
News reports that fees approaching $400 per hour generate about
$800 million a year in revenues for the companies who provide
VRS, an amount which far exceeds the cost of all other types of
relay service combined! It appears that some companies have
resorted to fraudulent means to get their hands on some of that
cash. Here's the release from the Department of Justice.

This is part one of two parts.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Indictments were unsealed today against 26 people charged with
engaging in a scheme to steal millions of dollars from the
Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) Video Relay Service
(VRS) program, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A.
Breuer of the Criminal Division, Assistant Director of the FBI's
Washington Field Office Joseph Persichini Jr., Deputy Chief
Postal Inspector Zane Hill, and FCC Chief of Staff Edward
Lazarus.

Arrests were made today by FBI agents and Postal Inspectors in
New York, New Jersey, Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, Arizona,
Nevada, Oregon and Maryland, and were the result of a joint FBI,
U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) and FCC Office of
Inspector General (FCC-OIG) investigation into a nationwide
scheme to defraud the FCC's VRS program.

"The individuals charged in connection with today's operation
are alleged to have stolen tens of millions of dollars from an
important government program that is intended to help deaf and
hard-of-hearing Americans communicate with hearing persons,"
said Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division Lanny
A. Breuer.  "These defendants are alleged to have generated
fraudulent call minutes by making it appear that deaf Americans
were engaging in legitimate calls with hearing persons, when in
reality, the defendants were simply attempting to steal money
from an FCC program that is funded by every single American who
pays their telephone bills. The Department of Justice will not
stand by and let corporate executives and others line their
pockets with money that should be used to help deaf Americans."

"Unfortunately, this remarkable service, designed to help those
in need, also provided a growth opportunity for criminal
activity that we believe has cost American consumers tens of
millions of dollars," said Joseph Persichini, Jr., Assistant
Director of the FBI's Washington Field Office.

"When the U.S. Mail is used for the purposes of committing
fraud, and in this case, a particularly insidious type of fraud,
it's the job of the Postal Inspection Service to aggressively
investigate and ensure America's confidence in the integrity of
its postal system," said Deputy Chief Postal Inspector Zane M.
Hill.

"Today's events represent both a tragedy and an opportunity,"
said FCC Chief of Staff Edward Lazarus. "The tragedy is the
unfortunate truth that a significant number of unscrupulous
individuals, at great cost to the nation, have preyed on a very
important program for delivering essential telecommunications
services to persons with hearing disabilities.  The
'opportunity' is the chance to reiterate our commitment to the
VRS program and to follow through on efforts, already begun at
the FCC, to safeguard the program against further waste, fraud,
and abuse and to improve its delivery of VRS services to
consumers."

The indictments allege that 26 individuals engaged in a scheme
to defraud the FCC by submitting false and fraudulent claims for
VRS calls, causing the FCC to reimburse the defendants at a rate
of approximately $390 per hour. According to the indictments,
VRS is an online video translation service that allows people
with hearing disabilities to communicate with hearing
individuals through the use of interpreters and Web cameras. A
person with a hearing disability who wants to communicate with a
hearing person can do so by contacting a VRS provider through an
audio and video Internet connection. The VRS provider, in turn,
employs a video interpreter to view and interpret the hearing
disabled person's signed conversation and relay the signed
conversation orally to a hearing person. VRS is funded by fees
assessed by telecommunications providers to telephone customers,
and is provided at no cost to the VRS user.

  The indictments charge owners and employees of the following
seven companies with engaging in a scheme to defraud the FCC's
VRS program
* Viable Communications Inc., of Rockville, Md.;
* Master Communications LLC, of Las Vegas;
* KL Communications LLC, of Phoenix;
* Mascom LLC of Austin, Texas;
* Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Interpreting Services Inc. (DHIS), of
New York and New Jersey;
* Innovative Communication Services for the Deaf Corp. (ICSD),
of Miami Lakes, Fla.; and
* Deaf Studio 29 of Huntington Beach, Calif.


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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Article 3: DHHCAN Releases New Consumer Action Guide on Air Travel
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Editor: Just in time for the 2009 Holiday season, DHHCAN has
released its new Consumer Action Guide on Air Travel. This press
release describes the document and includes a link so you can
get your very own copy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Deaf and Hard of Hearing Consumer Advocacy Network (DHHCAN)
announces today a new DHHCAN Consumer Action Guide for Air
Travel.  This guide is based upon the recent update of the Air
Carrier Access Act regulations issued by the U.S. Department of
Transportation in May 2009, during one of the most comprehensive
overhauls since the Act was enacted in 1990.

As we enter the hectic 2009 holiday travel season, it is
important that deaf, hard of hearing, late-deafened and
deaf-blind travelers are aware of their rights when making
reservations, inside the terminal, and onboard the aircraft.
The Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA) sets out requirements for
disability access at airports and on airlines.

These ACAA rules give protection from discrimination by:
* Prohibiting U.S. and foreign airlines from discriminating
against passengers on the basis of disability;
* Requiring airlines to make aircraft, other facilities, and
services accessible
* Requiring airlines to take steps to accommodate passengers
with a disability.

"Today's travelers need information from the minute they arrive
at the departing airport until they leave the destination
airport.  It is crucial that they have prompt access to
information once they self-identify that they are deaf, hard of
hearing or deaf-blind," says Barbara Raimondo, author of the
DHHCAN Air Travel Action Guide 2009 and a mother of two deaf
children.

Cheryl Heppner, vice chair of DHHCAN and a representative at the
U.S. Department of Transportation meetings on the ACAA hopes
that the travel guide will be useful to a broad range of
individuals.  "When I fly with my hearing dog Galaxy, I must not
only think about myself, but also Galaxy's safety and comfort,"
she said.  "The travel guide addresses important concerns such
as the need for seating appropriate for each specific assistance
dog and the need for designated areas where the dogs can relieve
themselves."

"These new regulations clarify the rights of not only deaf and
hard of hearing people, but also people who are deaf-blind,"
said Art Roehrig, DHHCAN representative from American
Association of the Deaf-Blind.  He adds, "The regulations enable
them to get to their plane and to their destination safely with
less confusion on where they can go,"

The DHHCAN Airline Travel Action Guide for 2009 outlines the
requirements that information and reservation services be
accessible to individuals who are deaf, hard of hearing, and
deaf-blind through TTY, Relay Services or other technology.
Televisions at airports must have captions turned on.  A
traveler who self-identifies that he or she is deaf, hard of
hearing or deaf-blind, has the right to prompt and accessible
information throughout the terminal as well as all effective
communications with aircraft personnel.  Service animals are
allowed to accompany a passenger with a disability in the main
cabin of the aircraft.  Airlines must assist an individual who
requests help moving around within the airport terminal.

Because the airlines have major concerns about their ability to
convey safety information to deaf-blind travelers and to assist
them in emergency evacuation, they are permitted to require that
a safety assistant accompany the deaf-blind traveler at no extra
charge.

The action guide provides guidance on filing a complaint if the
traveler experiences some form of discrimination.  DHHCAN
recommends that travelers file complaints with the U.S.
Department of Transportation when any of these rules are
violated.

The DHHCAN Action Guide on Air Travel is available online both
as a summary and as a full document at:
www.tdi-online.org/pdfs/DHHCAN_AirTravel_2009_guide.pdf.

It joins the coalition's Consumer Action Guide on Captioning at:
www.tdi-online.org/pdfs/DHHCAN_Caption_2009_guide.pdf,
which just received its third annual update.

~~~~~

About DHHCAN: Established in 1992, the Deaf and Hard of Hearing
Consumer Advocacy Network (DHHCAN) provides a forum for
proactive coordination of information for addressing and
influencing legislation.  It also seeks to further the movement
toward universal, barrier-free access with emphasis on quality,
certification and standards.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Article 4: Short Takes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Editor: Here are our picks of some additional stories that you
may find interesting. For more, please point your browser to:
http://www.hearinglossweb.com/news/curr.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

NFMI Technology Promises Wireless CIs

The most interesting of the products that they demoed was a
cochlear implant where the left and right ears implants could
communicate with each other using very short range wireless
technology. Cochlear implants are put inside deaf people's
skulls to interface directly to nerves. Gradually the deaf
person (usually a child) can start to hear as the brain works
out what to do with those weird electrical signals that suddenly
started to appear. I have a friend whose daughter was born deaf
and has a cochlear implant and the transformation is nothing
short of incredible. But putting two implants, one for each ear,
and having them be able to communicate with each other, makes
for even better comprehension. With an inductive interface too,
it is possible to use a small box that takes Bluetooth and
communicates inductively with the implants, allowing deaf people
to use the phone or listen to music much more easily (it's too
power hungry just to put a bluetooth receiver in the implant).

http://tinyurl.com/yk5k4ga

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

NIDCD Working Group on Accessible and Affordable Hearing Health
Care for Adults with Mild to Moderate Hearing Loss

The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication
Disorders/National Institutes of Health (NIDCD/NIH) sponsored a
working group on Accessible and Affordable Hearing Health Care
for Adults with Mild to Moderate Hearing Loss on August 25-27,
2009. The working group was held in Bethesda, Maryland. The
purpose of the working group was to develop a research agenda to
increase accessibility and affordability of hearing health care
for adults with mild to moderate hearing loss, including
accessible and low cost hearing aids.

http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/funding/programs/09HHC/summary.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I went out to the movies!

Who wants to pay a small fortune to sit in a movie theater
snacking on high-calorie popcorn, unable to pause the action for
a bathroom break, watching a film that's going to come out on
DVD in several months anyway? I do! Because I'm deaf, I couldn't
enjoy most movies in theaters until recently. Now I can, thanks
to AMC Loews Waterfront, which has introduced to the Pittsburgh
area something called Rear Window Captioning. As much as I love
movies, it's painful to sit through one without understanding
everything. It's no fun if everyone is laughing and I missed the
joke. Waiting for movies to come out on DVD sometimes feels like
an eternity. Many movies have special effects that are better
seen on a big screen. And when my girlfriends talk about going
to see a movie together, I feel left out when I can't join them.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09318/1013315-109.stm?cmpid=newspanel5


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Classifieds
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One Online Store and six Employment Opportunities (Ads appear
after this brief table of contents.)

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Employment Opportunity 1
Exciting Career Opportunities at GLAD
Various Southern California Locations

Employment Opportunity 2
Teaching Positions at GSD
Georgia School for the Deaf
Cave Spring, GA

Employment Opportunity 3
Co-Science Directors, Science of Learning Center on Visual
Language and Visual Learning
Gallaudet University
Washington, DC

Employment Opportunity 4
Director of Employment Services
Corliss Institute, Inc.
Warren, RI

Employment Opportunity 5
Director of Student Admissions
The Pennsylvania School for the Deaf
Philadelphia, PA

Employment Opportunity 6
Various Opportunities
Vocational Rehabilitation Program Deaf Services
Various Georgia Locations


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Employment Opportunity 1
Exciting Career Opportunities at GLAD
Various Southern California Locations
-------------------

Exciting Career Opportunities at GLAD

GLAD is an Affirmative Action Employer with equal opportunity
for men, women and people with disabilities. For more
information on the following positions, please go to:
www.gladinc.org. The status of all positions is: Regular,
Full-time, Non-Exempt, Full Fringe Benefits unless otherwise
noted. All positions are open until filled.

* Job Developer/Interpreter - Pacoima, CA
* Job Developer/Interpreter - Rancho Cucamonga, CA
* Community Interpreter - Los Angeles, CA

If interested for any of these positions then please submit
resume and application to:

Jeff Fetterman
Human Resources Specialist
Greater Los Angeles Agency on Deafness, Inc.
2222 Laverna Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90041
V/TDD: (323) 550-4207
Fax #: (323)550-4204
E-mail: jfetterman@...


-------------------
Employment Opportunity 2
Teaching Positions at GSD
Georgia School for the Deaf
Cave Spring, GA
-------------------

Position 1
High School Math Teacher

Minimum Qualifications: Must possess or be eligible to obtain
Georgia Professional Standards Commission Certification in the
area of Special Education Deaf Education AND High School Math.
Sign language proficiency at the "Intermediate Level" as
measured by the Sign Communication Proficiency Instrument is
required. Note: Candidates selected for employment must meet the
"Highly Qualified" provision of the federal No Child Left Behind
Act. Note: Must submit required certification documentation with
resume and cover letter or application.

For Additional Information:
http://www.hearinglossweb.com/res/emp/gsd_math.htm

~~~~~

Position 2
Substitute Teacher (Part-Time/Hourly)

Minimum Qualifications: High School Diploma or GED and four
hours of initial substitute teacher training provided by a local
education agency in Georgia and sign language proficiency at the
"Intermediate Level" as measured by the Sign Communication
Proficiency.

For Additional Information:
http://www.hearinglossweb.com/res/emp/gsd_sub.htm


-------------------
Employment Opportunity 3
Co-Science Directors, Science of Learning Center on Visual
Language and Visual Learning
Gallaudet University
Washington, DC
-------------------

The Center for Visual Language and Visual Learning (VL2) at
Gallaudet University is seeking two co-Science Directors to lead
a large collaborative effort in research involving visual
language and visual learning.  VL2 is a Science of Learning
Center (SLC), one of six SLCs funded by the National Science
Foundation.  Funded in 2006, VL2 currently supports over 30
interdisciplinary research projects, located across 10 different
universities, including two international universities.
Projects include neuroimaging studies of reading and visual
language development, cognitive and behavioral studies of
language development and literacy among deaf individuals, and
socio-cultural developmental studies of early visual language
and literacy practices in families and schools.    The VL2
Center's budget is approximately $4 million per year; we are
currently preparing our renewal application for an additional
five years of funding (2011-2016).

We are seeking science leaders who will bring groundbreaking
research to the Gallaudet campus in areas compatible with the
ongoing work of VL2.   Due to the large scope and bilingual
nature (English and American Sign Language) of our research, we
seek two scientists to lead our evolving work.   One of
directors must have a strong background in research with deaf
persons and be fluent in American Sign Language.   The other
director must have a willingness and enthusiasm to learn ASL on
the job.  The Co-Science Directors will work alongside the
Principal Investigator in overseeing the scientific activities
of the Center.  As tenure-line faculty members at Gallaudet
University, the Co-Directors will play an integral role in the
educational activities of VL2 and the University promoting the
scholarly and professional development of deaf and
hard-of-hearing researchers.

VL2 can provide significant resources to the new Directors.  It
is situated in the new Sorenson Language and Communication
Center on the Gallaudet campus.  It has partnerships with nine
other universities (including, locally, Georgetown University)
that may provide access to facilities and human resources to
support research efforts.

Each Co-Science Director, a mid- to senior-career level
individual, must have a PhD. or equivalent in Linguistics,
Psychology, Education, Cognitive Neuroscience or related field;
a distinguished record of research publications and of grant
funding; experience in center-based research activities, and a
commitment to collaborative, inter-disciplinary, team-based
research.  As noted, a first or second language fluency in
American Sign Language and knowledge of Deaf culture are
required for one of the two positions.  Salary: dependent on
rank and experience.

Send a cover letter, CV, and the names and addresses for three
references to:

Dr. Thomas E. Allen, PI
Science of Learning Center on Visual Language and Visual
Learning
Gallaudet University
SLCC 1223
800 Florida Ave, NE
Washington, DC, 20002
Email: thomas.allen@...
Website: VL2.gallaudet.edu
Phone: 202-651-5866

We will begin reviewing applications on November 15, 2009.
Positions will remain open till filled.  Anticipated starting
date: Summer, 2010.


-------------------
Employment Opportunity 4
Director of Employment Services
Corliss Institute, Inc.
Warren, RI
-------------------

Overall job function: Agency liaison for all client work and
business functions. To structure the developing Program into 3
separate services. To oversee Project staffing and performance.
To monitor and assess Department activities/goals, and to
research additional options. To assure that the Program services
and goals result in meaningful work in settings that are not
segregated or sheltered.  This position reports to the Executive
Director.

Requirements:  M.A. desired, B.A. minimum. Experience with State
Rehabilitation agency procedures/policies for Supported Work.
Knowledge of deaf adults with developmental disabilities,
fluency in ASL required/capacity to gain these skills.
PR/networking skills with employers, state and private
employment groups and others.  Business skills and supervisory
experience as well as ability to assess viability in the areas
of client need, project viability (revenue, expenses, etc.) and
public response. Excellent writing skills, familiarity with
Word, Excel and basic programs, and the ability to be productive
in team and independent settings.

Examples of Job Duties:
1. Works with Executive Director, Senior Team and
funders/partners to develop and refine Program.
2.  Recruits and interviews needed consultants, staff, interns
and volunteers.
3. Develops sales initiatives, customers, jobs and related
Program components through research, email, phone/videophone/TTY
and attendance at various events.
4. Develops Program promotional materials and events for
increasing public and consumer use.
5. Liaison to external entities.
6. Internal and formal Reports other documents to track Program
progress and outcomes.
7. Program and expenditure reports, revenue projections and
other documents.
8. Other duties as determined by supervisor/agency need.

This is a full-time exempt position, and includes full agency
fringe and benefits. Salary - high $40's. Limited relocation
funds. Position funded for one year; contingent upon generated
revenue.

Cover letter/resume to:
Jean Moniz, Director of HR
Corliss Institute, Inc.
290 Main Street
Warren, RI 02885
jmoniz@...
FAX to: 401-245-8023


-------------------
Employment Opportunity 5
Director of Student Admissions
The Pennsylvania School for the Deaf
Philadelphia, PA
-------------------

This is a full-time 12-month position.  At least a Master's
Degree in Psychology or related field. Possess proficiency in
sign language.  Supervise a full array of clinical
student/family support services.  Collaborate with LEAs and
families regarding enrolment and coordinate the PDE approval
process. Coordinate the scheduling and completion of Biannual
and Triennial multidisciplinary evaluations ERs, IEPs and
standardized school-wide assessment services.  Collaborate on
the transition to school age process and the ESY/Summer Program.

Deadline for submission is December 11, 2009.

Send letter of interest and resume/vitae to:
Jane Homka
Executive Secretary
The Pennsylvania School for the Deaf
100 W. School House Lane
Philadelphia, PA 19144
e-mail: jhomka@...


-------------------
Employment Opportunity 6
Various Opportunities
Vocational Rehabilitation Program Deaf Services
Various Georgia Locations
-------------------

The Georgia Department of Labor, Vocational Rehabilitation
Program Deaf Services program is looking for two individuals to
join our team and serve our clients who are Deaf, Hard of
Hearing and Late Deafened.

For additional details regarding both positions and to formally
apply, please click on the URL provided.

Region Unit Manager for Deaf Services:
http://tinyurl.com/ylga57o

Rehabilitation Counselor for Deaf Services:
http://tinyurl.com/yljo7cw


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Contact Information and Disclaimers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We are very interested in your comments concerning the content
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useful to you. Please send your comments and suggestions to:
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Publication of articles or advertisements does not constitute an
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Copyright (C) 2009 Hearing Loss Web, LLC. All rights reserved.

HOH-LD-News
Vol. 41, Issue 7
November 14, 2009

Copyright (C) 2009 Hearing Loss Web, LLC. All rights reserved.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Table of Contents
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

- Article 1: Digital Television Transition Forum - Part Four

- Article 2: Mouse study sheds light on age-related hearing loss

- Article 3: CHC Launches "Ask the Experts"

- Article 4: Short Takes

Our advertisers make it possible for us to provide HOH-LD-News
as a free service. Please let them know you appreciate their
support, and please mention that you saw their message in
HOH-LD-News.

- Advertisers in this Issue
      First Premium Placement:
           YOUR AD HERE
      Second Premium Placement:
           Save 20% on Equipment at Harris Communications
      Third Premium Placement:
           Hearing Aid Repairs and Reduced Price Hearing Aids
           from Hearing Haven
      Classified Section:
           One Online Store and six Employment Opportunities

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Contact information and disclaimers are at the end of this newsletter.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Article 1: Digital Television Transition Forum - Part Four
By Cheryl Heppner
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Editor: Folks who are interested in the technical side of
hearing loss solutions love the biennial TDI Convention. Cheryl
Heppner hosted a Digital Television Transition Forum at the 2009
convention, and it was every bit as informative as you would
expect it to be. And she wrote it up so we could all benefit
from it!

This is Part Four of Five Parts

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

RESOURCES FOR TECHNICAL SOLUTIONS

Audience:

As someone who worked in the trade, something that has been
missing is sufficient detail. It might be possible to use test
and measurement equipment, and as people contribute the
information you'd be able to say where to adjust it within
certain values and what the output should be.  Also suppose
there is an electronics engineer who is in that first day on the
job and is supposed to fix something and there's a unfamiliar
widget on the screen.  If there's information on the web with a
video showing how to make a specific adjustment that's away from
a strong magnetic field and within a certain range it would be
really helpful.

Cathy Seidel:

Once there are technical solutions or recommendations to resolve
certain captioning issues, it has been suggested that there be
some repository that is easily accessible for consumers.
Occasionally consumers can do things themselves to make it
easier to fix problems, whether it's changing how they have
certain things set up or getting through the menu to the right
place.  The FCC has a group of people whose major role is
consumer education and publications.  We have been trying to do
more and more in this area, with videos online that have the
same information as what is available in a written format.  The
last couple of videos were done in American Sign Language.  We
look forward to information learned through the task force and
how we can make it available and useful to the people who need
it.

MONITORING BROADCASTS FOR CAPTION PROBLEMS

Dana Mulvany:

I spoke at the working group on May 18 about the numerous
problems I've had with broadcast TV in the DC area. Recently I
went to Atlanta where I documented another captioning problem,
and then to a hotel in Pittsburgh where I found captioning on
only two of all the channels available.  To me this suggests
that engineers simply aren't monitoring the captions.  Why is
this?  That should be expected and it is needed. You can't look
at the captioning only for the prime time, pre-recorded
programs.  You also need to look at the captioning for live
news, syndicated programs and other categories of programming
because captioning is transmitted in different ways by the
equipment.  It might work fine for one type of programming but
not for others.  Some engineers think that if you look at Good
Morning America at 8 a.m. there will not be a problem with
captioning at 8 p.m.  But Good Morning America uses realtime
captioning from a national satellite and is delivered
differently from other programs.

Engineers should be checking both 608 and 708 captioning.  Many
stations are only monitoring the 608 captions.  What concerns me
is that there is such a disconnect between the industry and the
needs of people who are deaf or hard of hearing.  There isn't a
flow of communication between the professionals and people who
use the products and services.  As an example, TVs are being
manufactured that don't have decoding available on the analog
inputs. If we don't have that, we lose the ability to decode
captions from DVD players.

We can't see captions from TiVos because manufacturers are
thinking there is no need for analog captioning any more. We
still need decoding of both analog and digital captions, NTSC as
well as ATSC.  Look at systemic issues and look at what keeps
your engineers from doing a better job with captioning.  Is it
part of their job description?

Brian Markwalter:

Caption decoding is a broadcast TV function, so I didn't talk
about situations when the TV is just a monitor.  When you put a
box in front of the TV, you can no longer guarantee that the TV
is able to support the caption decoding. Some interfaces won't
support it at all.  Right now the way the regulations work, and
kind of the way the system works, is that captions flow through
the broadcaster, then go through the tuner and are decoded in
the TV.  Some analog interfaces also support captions, but not
all do.  The digital interfaces generally do not.  A simple way
to think about it is that if you put a video source in front of
the TV, you need to start thinking about turning on the
captions, doing the caption decoding there, and just displaying
the captions on the TV.  Look to the box in front of the TV if
you're not receiving off the antenna.

Ann Bobeck:

I'll take back to our stations the need to step up the
monitoring.  It's done not just by station engineers but
everyone in the master control.  It's a good point to remind
them of their obligations to monitor both 608 and 708.

Andy Scott:

I agree about the importance of monitoring.  We do monitor.  We
have engineers who look carefully at 608 and 708 captions with
test equipment. That doesn't tell the whole story.  You can have
a properly formed bit pattern going through your test equipment
and still have problems, as we're finding.  It will be great for
the FCC technical working group to flush out some of these
things.  We've got hundreds and hundreds of channels in the
cable systems today, all with thousands of hours of programming
and thousands of hours of captioning on those programs. It's
going to be impossible to monitor all of the channels 24/7 on a
realtime basis.  We don't have the equipment to do it today.
We're looking carefully at the processes.  The best I think we
will be able to do is to spot check as a matter of procedure on
a percentage basis or something like that.

DELAYED CAPTIONS

Ron:

Often when we watch television, we'll see captions come up far
later than the text we're seeing from the CART writer for this
panel. It's hard for me to track what each character is saying.

Pam:

I have a movie that captured this problem that I did not show.

Ann Bobeck:

I think the delayed captions are frustrating as well.  With a
pre-recorded program the question is whether it's a technical
delay and if it's realtime captioning, the question is whether
there's a transmission delay on the telephone line used by the
captioner.  I think those are among the questions we're going to
try to address through the technical working group.  The third
issue is whether it could be a problem with the encoding.  When
the captioning rules first went into effect in 1997, I was an
intern at NAB.  We thought that by the time 100% captioning had
to be implemented we'd have state of the art voice recognition
software to provide the captions.

Andy Scott:

You'd think that pre-recorded programs could get captions right
100% of the time.  We have got to really dig in and figure out
why that is not happening.  You know you have the time and
opportunity to get it right so there is really no excuse why it
can't be delivered to the consumer that way. There is a built-in
set of real issues with live captions that we have to look at
carefully too.  We're committed to working on this.

~~~~~

(c)2009 by Northern Virginia Resource Center for Deaf and Hard
of Hearing Persons (NVRC), 3951 Pender Drive, Suite 130,
Fairfax, VA 22030; www.nvrc.org. 703-352-9055 V, 703-352-9056
TTY, 703-352-9058 Fax. You do not need permission to share this
information, but please be sure to credit NVRC.


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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Article 2: Mouse study sheds light on age-related hearing loss
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Editor: We've all heard that about half of senior citizens have
age-related hearing loss. But what about the other half? As you
may have suspected, there's a genetic factor at work here.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin have made an
important discovery that sheds light on this topic.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Becoming "hard of hearing" is a standard but unfortunate part of
aging: A syndrome called age-related hearing loss affects about
40 percent of people over 65 in the United States, and will
afflict an estimated 28 million Americans by 2030.

"Age-related hearing loss is a very common symptom of aging in
humans, and also is universal among mammal species, and it's one
of the earliest detectable sensory changes in aging," says Tomas
Prolla, a professor of genetics and medical genetics at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Prolla is senior author of a paper in today's (Nov. 9) PNAS that
looks at the genetic roots of this type of hearing loss, which
is not due to noise exposure.

The study has identified a gene that is essential to age-related
hearing loss, a condition marked by deaths of sensory hair cells
and spiral ganglion neurons in the inner ear. These cells are at
the heart of the conversion of vibrations into nerve impulses
that the brain can decipher, and yet these cells cannot be
regenerated.

In mice, the new study shows that the damage starts with free
radicals, which are key suspects in many harmful changes of
aging. Free radicals trigger a process called apoptosis, or
programmed cell death, by which damaged cells "commit suicide."
Apoptosis is often beneficial, as it eliminates cells that may
be destined for cancer.

Before the study, it was already clear that "aging was
associated with a major loss of hair cells and ganglion cells,
so it was plausible that programmed cell death was playing a
role in hearing loss," says Prolla. "We also thought that
oxidative stress - the presence of free radicals - contributes
to age-related hearing loss, so we put two and two together and
showed that oxidative stress does indeed induce age-related
hearing loss."

In mice, Prolla and the study's first author, Shinichi Someya, a
postdoctoral researcher at UW-Madison, found that the suicide
program was operating in hair cells and spiral ganglion neurons,
and that the suicide program relied on activity in a suicide
gene called bak.

Activity of the bak gene "is required for the development of
age-related hearing loss," says Someya. "The strongest evidence
for this was the fact that a strain of mice that did not have
the bak gene did not show the expected hearing loss at 15 months
of age."

In one way, the new results are a bit unusual, Prolla admits.
"In most genetic diseases, it's a mutation that causes the
disease. In our study, a mutation in the gene prevents the
disease."

Someya says he measured mouse hearing with an instrument like
that used to test hearing in newborns. "It's a standard test for
infants. We place electrodes on the skin above the brain, and
when they respond to a sound an electric current is generated
from the brainstem, and we detect that current."

The new results, obtained with collaboration from the
universities of Florida, Washington and Tokyo, hint that the
oxidative stress and hearing loss may be preventable. Although
antioxidants have been widely used, with generally disappointing
results, to prevent free-radical damage in aging, Someya and
Prolla found that two oral antioxidants were effective. "One of
the most surprising findings was that these two - alpha lipoic
acid and coenzyme Q10 - were very specific in their protection
against apoptosis and hearing loss," says Prolla.

Programmed cell death is triggered by mitochondria, small units
inside cells that process energy for the cell. But when the
mitochondria receive signals indicating that the cell is
damaged, they break up and begin the process of apoptosis.

Confirming the importance of mitochondria in hearing loss, both
of the helpful antioxidants are known to make mitochondria less
responsive to oxidative stress.

The study provides strong evidence linking free radicals, the
bak gene and hearing loss, Prolla says. "We wanted to know how
oxidative stress leads to deaths of these critical cells, and
when we looked at mice without bak, they were entirely protected
from age-related hearing loss. One of our major findings is that
free-radical damage does not kill the cell directly, but rather
induces the pathway to programmed cell death. Mice without bak
still accumulated oxidative damage, but did not undergo
programmed cell death, did not lose hair cells or these neurons,
and their hearing was fine."

Bak may play a role in other age-related conditions, Prolla
adds. "This study focused on hearing loss, but there is evidence
that other diseases associated with the loss of neurons, like
Parkinson's or Alzheimer's, are associated with oxidative
stress, and it's possible that the bak protein plays a role in
apoptosis in those diseases as well. We are very intrigued by
the possibility that blocking bak may have broader utility
against neurodegeneration."


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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Article 3: CHC Launches "Ask the Experts"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Editor: The Center for Hearing and Communication (CHC) has
announced a new online resource for people looking for hearing
loss information. It sounds like a great way to get questions
answered. Here's the press release. Oh, and for those who don't
recognize this organization, they've recently changed their name
from the League for the Hard of Hearing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

People whose lives have been touched by hearing loss are hungry
for answers to questions that constantly run through their mind.
How do I find the resources I need?  Who can help me advocate
for my child?  Which amplified phone is right for me?  These
questions and many more can sometimes go unanswered while an
individual waits to meet with his or her hearing healthcare
professional. Or worse, the questions go unanswered because the
person does not live in proximity to a clinician with the
necessary expertise and experience.  Addressing this need for
increased access to hearing healthcare professionals, the Center
for Hearing and Communication announces the launch of "Ask the
Experts."

"Ask the Experts" is an online resource that puts consumers
directly in touch with CHC clinicians and other staff members
with the appropriate expertise to answer their questions and
direct them to the resources they're looking for.  The
information is exchanged typically within 24 hours via an online
Q&A forum housed on www.chchearing.org.  Questions and answers
that pertain to a topic of universal interest are posted on the
site for all visitors to read.  The privacy of individuals
submitting questions is carefully protected.

"Ask the Experts" is just one of the innovative features on the
Center for Hearing and Communication's new website at
www.chchearing.org.  The site functions as both an information
resource and a marketing tool promoting CHC's wide array of
hearing and communication services for people of all ages with
hearing loss.  Says Laurie Hanin, CHC's Executive Director, "Our
new site is an interactive resource addressing the needs not
only of the one million people with hearing loss in New York
City, but also the 38 million people across the country who now
have access to our renowned team of clinicians.  We recognize
the importance of giving people with hearing loss the ability to
communicate with us online because communication over the phone
can often be a challenge."

"Ask the Experts" is a service of the Family Resource Center at
CHC which is made possible by the generous support of The Bodman
Foundation, the J. C. Kellogg Foundation, the Milbank Foundation
for Rehabilitation, the Morgan Stanley Foundation/VIP Program,
and The Thomas and Agnes Carvel Foundation.

~~~~~

The Center for Hearing and Communication, formerly League for
the Hard of Hearing, is a not-for-profit organization whose
mission is to improve the quality of life for infants, children
and adults with all degrees of hearing loss. Established in
1910, CHC accomplishes its mission by providing hearing
rehabilitation and human services for people who are hard of
hearing or deaf, and their families, regardless of age, ability
to pay, or mode of communication, and by striving to empower
consumers to achieve their potential.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Article 4: Short Takes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Editor: Here are our picks of some additional stories that you
may find interesting. For more, please point your browser to:
http://www.hearinglossweb.com/news/curr.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chemotherapy's link to hearing loss found

Canadian researchers have discovered why a common chemotherapy
drug causes hearing loss in some childhood cancer patients,
paving the way for a simple saliva or blood test that can
predict who is most likely to develop the problem. After
analyzing more than 1,800 genetic variations in 220 key genes,
British Columbia scientists have found two genetic variations
that for children who have them, means they will suffer serious
hearing loss after taking cisplatin. The study, published in the
journal Nature Genetics, also has implications for adults, some
of whom suffer hearing loss after taking cisplatin treatment for
cancers of the ovaries, liver, stomach and bladder.

http://tinyurl.com/yjuol3z

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Improvements Coming for Tactile Hearing Aids?

Tactile aids, which translate sound waves into vibrations that
can be felt by the skin, have been used for decades by people
with severe/profound hearing loss to enhance speech/language
development and improve speechreading. Although multichannel
cochlear implants have gained the lion's share of attention and
usage over the years by demonstrating their superiority in word
recognition and speech understanding without the need to
speechread, tactile aids continue to inspire research and may be
undergoing a technological renewal. In 2006, Iranian researchers
published a study on the use of tactile aids, along with
rehabilitation and training, in patients within the Department
of Otolaryngology at the Tehran University of Medical Sciences.
They designed four educational stages--detection, beginning
pattern perception, recognition of speech, and comprehension of
words--to check the improvement of subjects who used one-, two-
and seven-channel tactile aids. Patients with the seven-channel
tactile aids were able to successfully pass through all four
stages, leading the researchers to conclude, "Tactile aids are
well accepted by the patients with severe to profound
sensorineural hearing loss who do not benefit from usual hearing
aids."

http://tinyurl.com/yzweg6t

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

India may allow deaf to drive!

India is one of the few countries in the world where the hearing
impaired are not allowed to drive. But this may change soon,
with the government informing the Delhi High Court it is
considering changing its rules. "We are considering issuing
driving licences to hearing impaired people and thinking of
amending our rules and regulations," Additional Solicitor
General A.S. Chandiok informed a division bench of the high
court comprising Chief Justice Ajit Prakash Shah and Justice S.
Muralidhar. The court has granted the government three months'
time to take a decision and posted the matter for Dec 16.

http://trak.in/news/indias-deaf-may-get-licence-to-drive/21557/


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Classifieds
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One Online Store and six Employment Opportunities (Ads appear
after this brief table of contents.)

WCI. Your Single Source for Assistive Technology
FREE GROUND SHIPPING IN NOVEMBER
http://www.weitbrecht.com

Employment Opportunity 1
Exciting Career Opportunities at GLAD
Various Southern California Locations

Employment Opportunity 2
Teaching Positions at GSD
Georgia School for the Deaf
Cave Spring, GA

Employment Opportunity 3
Co-Science Directors, Science of Learning Center on Visual
Language and Visual Learning
Gallaudet University
Washington, DC

Employment Opportunity 4
Director of Employment Services
Corliss Institute, Inc.
Warren, RI

Employment Opportunity 5
Director of Student Admissions
The Pennsylvania School for the Deaf
Philadelphia, PA

Employment Opportunity 6
Various Opportunities
Vocational Rehabilitation Program Deaf Services
Various Georgia Locations


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-------------------
Employment Opportunity 1
Exciting Career Opportunities at GLAD
Various Southern California Locations
-------------------

Exciting Career Opportunities at GLAD

GLAD is an Affirmative Action Employer with equal opportunity
for men, women and people with disabilities. For more
information on the following positions, please go to:
www.gladinc.org. The status of all positions is: Regular,
Full-time, Non-Exempt, Full Fringe Benefits unless otherwise
noted. All positions are open until filled.

* Job Developer/Interpreter - Pacoima, CA
* Community Interpreter - Los Angeles, CA

If interested for any of these positions then please submit
resume and application to:

Jeff Fetterman
Human Resources Specialist
Greater Los Angeles Agency on Deafness, Inc.
2222 Laverna Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90041
V/TDD: (323) 550-4207
Fax #: (323)550-4204
E-mail: jfetterman@...


-------------------
Employment Opportunity 2
Teaching Positions at GSD
Georgia School for the Deaf
Cave Spring, GA
-------------------

Position 1
High School Math Teacher

Minimum Qualifications: Must possess or be eligible to obtain
Georgia Professional Standards Commission Certification in the
area of Special Education Deaf Education AND High School Math.
Sign language proficiency at the "Intermediate Level" as
measured by the Sign Communication Proficiency Instrument is
required. Note: Candidates selected for employment must meet the
"Highly Qualified" provision of the federal No Child Left Behind
Act. Note: Must submit required certification documentation with
resume and cover letter or application.

For Additional Information:
http://www.hearinglossweb.com/res/emp/gsd_math.htm

~~~~~

Position 2
Substitute Teacher (Part-Time/Hourly)

Minimum Qualifications: High School Diploma or GED and four
hours of initial substitute teacher training provided by a local
education agency in Georgia and sign language proficiency at the
"Intermediate Level" as measured by the Sign Communication
Proficiency.

For Additional Information:
http://www.hearinglossweb.com/res/emp/gsd_sub.htm


-------------------
Employment Opportunity 3
Co-Science Directors, Science of Learning Center on Visual
Language and Visual Learning
Gallaudet University
Washington, DC
-------------------

The Center for Visual Language and Visual Learning (VL2) at
Gallaudet University is seeking two co-Science Directors to lead
a large collaborative effort in research involving visual
language and visual learning.  VL2 is a Science of Learning
Center (SLC), one of six SLCs funded by the National Science
Foundation.  Funded in 2006, VL2 currently supports over 30
interdisciplinary research projects, located across 10 different
universities, including two international universities.
Projects include neuroimaging studies of reading and visual
language development, cognitive and behavioral studies of
language development and literacy among deaf individuals, and
socio-cultural developmental studies of early visual language
and literacy practices in families and schools.    The VL2
Center's budget is approximately $4 million per year; we are
currently preparing our renewal application for an additional
five years of funding (2011-2016).

We are seeking science leaders who will bring groundbreaking
research to the Gallaudet campus in areas compatible with the
ongoing work of VL2.   Due to the large scope and bilingual
nature (English and American Sign Language) of our research, we
seek two scientists to lead our evolving work.   One of
directors must have a strong background in research with deaf
persons and be fluent in American Sign Language.   The other
director must have a willingness and enthusiasm to learn ASL on
the job.  The Co-Science Directors will work alongside the
Principal Investigator in overseeing the scientific activities
of the Center.  As tenure-line faculty members at Gallaudet
University, the Co-Directors will play an integral role in the
educational activities of VL2 and the University promoting the
scholarly and professional development of deaf and
hard-of-hearing researchers.

VL2 can provide significant resources to the new Directors.  It
is situated in the new Sorenson Language and Communication
Center on the Gallaudet campus.  It has partnerships with nine
other universities (including, locally, Georgetown University)
that may provide access to facilities and human resources to
support research efforts.

Each Co-Science Director, a mid- to senior-career level
individual, must have a PhD. or equivalent in Linguistics,
Psychology, Education, Cognitive Neuroscience or related field;
a distinguished record of research publications and of grant
funding; experience in center-based research activities, and a
commitment to collaborative, inter-disciplinary, team-based
research.  As noted, a first or second language fluency in
American Sign Language and knowledge of Deaf culture are
required for one of the two positions.  Salary: dependent on
rank and experience.

Send a cover letter, CV, and the names and addresses for three
references to:

Dr. Thomas E. Allen, PI
Science of Learning Center on Visual Language and Visual
Learning
Gallaudet University
SLCC 1223
800 Florida Ave, NE
Washington, DC, 20002
Email: thomas.allen@...
Website: VL2.gallaudet.edu
Phone: 202-651-5866

We will begin reviewing applications on November 15, 2009.
Positions will remain open till filled.  Anticipated starting
date: Summer, 2010.


-------------------
Employment Opportunity 4
Director of Employment Services
Corliss Institute, Inc.
Warren, RI
-------------------

Overall job function: Agency liaison for all client work and
business functions. To structure the developing Program into 3
separate services. To oversee Project staffing and performance.
To monitor and assess Department activities/goals, and to
research additional options. To assure that the Program services
and goals result in meaningful work in settings that are not
segregated or sheltered.  This position reports to the Executive
Director.

Requirements:  M.A. desired, B.A. minimum. Experience with State
Rehabilitation agency procedures/policies for Supported Work.
Knowledge of deaf adults with developmental disabilities,
fluency in ASL required/capacity to gain these skills.
PR/networking skills with employers, state and private
employment groups and others.  Business skills and supervisory
experience as well as ability to assess viability in the areas
of client need, project viability (revenue, expenses, etc.) and
public response. Excellent writing skills, familiarity with
Word, Excel and basic programs, and the ability to be productive
in team and independent settings.

Examples of Job Duties:
1. Works with Executive Director, Senior Team and
funders/partners to develop and refine Program.
2.  Recruits and interviews needed consultants, staff, interns
and volunteers.
3. Develops sales initiatives, customers, jobs and related
Program components through research, email, phone/videophone/TTY
and attendance at various events.
4. Develops Program promotional materials and events for
increasing public and consumer use.
5. Liaison to external entities.
6. Internal and formal Reports other documents to track Program
progress and outcomes.
7. Program and expenditure reports, revenue projections and
other documents.
8. Other duties as determined by supervisor/agency need.

This is a full-time exempt position, and includes full agency
fringe and benefits. Salary - high $40's. Limited relocation
funds. Position funded for one year; contingent upon generated
revenue.

Cover letter/resume to:
Jean Moniz, Director of HR
Corliss Institute, Inc.
290 Main Street
Warren, RI 02885
jmoniz@...
FAX to: 401-245-8023


-------------------
Employment Opportunity 5
Director of Student Admissions
The Pennsylvania School for the Deaf
Philadelphia, PA
-------------------

This is a full-time 12-month position.  At least a Master's
Degree in Psychology or related field. Possess proficiency in
sign language.  Supervise a full array of clinical
student/family support services.  Collaborate with LEAs and
families regarding enrolment and coordinate the PDE approval
process. Coordinate the scheduling and completion of Biannual
and Triennial multidisciplinary evaluations ERs, IEPs and
standardized school-wide assessment services.  Collaborate on
the transition to school age process and the ESY/Summer Program.

Deadline for submission is December 11, 2009.

Send letter of interest and resume/vitae to:
Jane Homka
Executive Secretary
The Pennsylvania School for the Deaf
100 W. School House Lane
Philadelphia, PA 19144
e-mail: jhomka@...


-------------------
Employment Opportunity 6
Various Opportunities
Vocational Rehabilitation Program Deaf Services
Various Georgia Locations
-------------------

The Georgia Department of Labor, Vocational Rehabilitation
Program Deaf Services program is looking for two individuals to
join our team and serve our clients who are Deaf, Hard of
Hearing and Late Deafened.

For additional details regarding both positions and to formally
apply, please click on the URL provided.

Region Unit Manager for Deaf Services:
http://tinyurl.com/ylga57o

Rehabilitation Counselor for Deaf Services:
http://tinyurl.com/yljo7cw


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Contact Information and Disclaimers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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