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http://www.2theadvocate.com/stories/122505/new_techfree001.shtml
Tucked away in her cubicle at Blue Cross-Blue Shield of Louisiana, Yvette Moody stares into the incandescent glow of her computer screen, taps out a few sentences and clicks "send."
Another e-mail dispatched -- just one of millions transmitted daily in the business world.
Except that this one signals a revolution.
Moody is one of 200,000 Louisianians and 28 million deaf Americans who are seeing the closing of a communication gap between those who hear and those who can't.
The high-tech gadgets and gizmos most people take for granted -- wireless Internet, Blackberries and Sidekicks, e-mail, instant messaging, text pagers, video phones and Web cams -- are now more available to the hearing-impaired, leveling the playing field a bit more.
Once handicapped by the front-and-center status of the telephone in the professional world, Moody and others who have embraced devices devoted to visual communication now find themselves on equal terms with other workers.
"The new technology has been a godsend," said Moody, a 42-year-old system integration analyst. "It's opened doors that previously were closed to us."
Those doors swung shut more than a century ago, when Alexander Graham Bell -- experimenting with ways to teach speech to deaf children -- instead invented the telephone.
Over the years, there were efforts to make a deaf-friendly device, including the Telecommunications Device for the Deaf, a telephone with text, and the Voice Carry Over, or VCO, which allowed the hearing-impaired to talk directly to those they called and have responses typed back using a relay service.
But it wasn't until Vinton Cerf, a former researcher with the U.S. Department of Defense, hearing-impaired and frustrated with communication with colleagues, helped jump-start the Internet, that things began to change.
Then came e-mail and instant messaging. Cellular phones with text-messaging capabilities. Wireless portable communication devices, such as Blackberry and Sidekick. Web cameras that allow the deaf to speak to one another online using American Sign Language.
Soon, advocates say, 3G and 4G wireless video phones -- already available in parts of Europe -- will let subscribers see who they're talking to in real time, which will give the hearing impaired another edge.
"The Internet is just one technology that has had a direct impact on the integration of deaf people in a hearing environment," Cerf said in a recent speech. "What is important about it is that the tools they use are the tools that the rest of the hearing population use too."
W. Fred Roy III, executive director of the Louisiana Commission for the Deaf, said the shift has been dramatic and swift -- much of it taking place in the past 36 months.
What it means, Roy said, is that the hearing impaired can not only perform such mundane tasks as ordering pizza but also participate in video conferences at the office.
"Deaf people for the first time in history can talk to anybody, anywhere at any time for any reason," Roy said. "That means their involvement in commerce is improved, their ability to maintain employment is improved and their ability to participate as taxpayers is improved. There is no way to say this other than it's very exciting."
But it also forces the state agency -- which historically has provided specialized equipment for the deaf not stocked in every shopping mall -- to rethink its role. Roy said the commission likely will shift its focus to advocacy issues.
For Moody, such changes have meant the difference between pursuing the same career she planned before losing her hearing -- or the ones suggested by a rehabilitation service: Data entry clerk or beautician.
"In the business world, people sometimes feel your intellectual ability is somehow on the same level as your hearing ability," said Moody, a Southern University graduate who has a master's degree from the University of Phoenix. "I've run the whole gamut with technology, but it's been worth it."
The former model mysteriously began losing her hearing in 1988 -- just two weeks before she turned 25.
Initially, she used a TDD, but found it limiting because it could only communicate with other TDDs. Then came a portable Voice Carry Over, or VCO, which allowed Moody to talk directly to the person she called and have responses typed back to her using a relay service.
When Moody went to work for Apple Computer in 1995, she was given an alpha pager through which she could receive e-mails.
In her job with BlueCross BlueShield, most of Moody's communication is over the Internet via e-mail. She's also gotten a cochlear implant, a device that transmits sound by stimulating nerve fibers in the inner ear.
But what thrills Moody the most about the impact of mainstream technology is that what it means for her 15-year-old daughter Racheal, a sophomore at Lee High School who is also hearing impaired.
"I tell her, 'Whatever you want to do, you can do," she said. "Your disability does not have to hold you back at all. She wanted to be the first deaf astronaut. Now it's massage therapy."
When David Moores started cleaning cages after school at the Animal Medical Center in Covington, colleagues would flash the lights to let him know it was time to go home.
Today, the 27-year-old grandson of author Walker Percy, who was born with a hearing loss that got worse over time, is a veterinarian in that same clinic.
The LSU School of Veterinary Medicine graduate communicates with clients using e-mail, instant messages and -- before he got a cochlear implant last July -- a relay service through which an interpreter read his typewritten messages to the person on the other end of the telephone.
Moores said the technological developments can make a difference -- but ultimately it depends on whether the hearing-impaired person is willing to take advantage of it.
"I know quite a few deaf people, and some take it upon themselves to learn how to better themselves and get an education. They have a drive to succeed and they have resources and they know how to make use of that," Moores said. "But some don't have that kind of will."
He remembers when his mother, Ann Moores -- who is also deaf -- got her first Blackberry. She was so excited about the prospect of communicating with family and friends, he noted, that she exceeded the messaging limit in the first two days.
In a conference room at Hamilton Telecommunications on Bluebonnet Centre Boulevard, employee Henry Brinkmann has assembled a display showing the evolution of the technology that over the years has helped the hearing impaired communicate.
But the businessman -- who is deaf -- said none of those earlier devices offered the kinds of opportunities the hearing impaired now have.
"It's truly leveling the playing field," Brinkmann said. "It's a whole new world for us."
Tucked away in her cubicle at Blue Cross-Blue Shield of Louisiana, Yvette Moody stares into the incandescent glow of her computer screen, taps out a few sentences and clicks "send."
Another e-mail dispatched -- just one of millions transmitted daily in the business world.
Except that this one signals a revolution.
Moody is one of 200,000 Louisianians and 28 million deaf Americans who are seeing the closing of a communication gap between those who hear and those who can't.
The high-tech gadgets and gizmos most people take for granted -- wireless Internet, Blackberries and Sidekicks, e-mail, instant messaging, text pagers, video phones and Web cams -- are now more available to the hearing-impaired, leveling the playing field a bit more.
Once handicapped by the front-and-center status of the telephone in the professional world, Moody and others who have embraced devices devoted to visual communication now find themselves on equal terms with other workers.
"The new technology has been a godsend," said Moody, a 42-year-old system integration analyst. "It's opened doors that previously were closed to us."
Those doors swung shut more than a century ago, when Alexander Graham Bell -- experimenting with ways to teach speech to deaf children -- instead invented the telephone.
Over the years, there were efforts to make a deaf-friendly device, including the Telecommunications Device for the Deaf, a telephone with text, and the Voice Carry Over, or VCO, which allowed the hearing-impaired to talk directly to those they called and have responses typed back using a relay service.
But it wasn't until Vinton Cerf, a former researcher with the U.S. Department of Defense, hearing-impaired and frustrated with communication with colleagues, helped jump-start the Internet, that things began to change.
Then came e-mail and instant messaging. Cellular phones with text-messaging capabilities. Wireless portable communication devices, such as Blackberry and Sidekick. Web cameras that allow the deaf to speak to one another online using American Sign Language.
Soon, advocates say, 3G and 4G wireless video phones -- already available in parts of Europe -- will let subscribers see who they're talking to in real time, which will give the hearing impaired another edge.
"The Internet is just one technology that has had a direct impact on the integration of deaf people in a hearing environment," Cerf said in a recent speech. "What is important about it is that the tools they use are the tools that the rest of the hearing population use too."
W. Fred Roy III, executive director of the Louisiana Commission for the Deaf, said the shift has been dramatic and swift -- much of it taking place in the past 36 months.
What it means, Roy said, is that the hearing impaired can not only perform such mundane tasks as ordering pizza but also participate in video conferences at the office.
"Deaf people for the first time in history can talk to anybody, anywhere at any time for any reason," Roy said. "That means their involvement in commerce is improved, their ability to maintain employment is improved and their ability to participate as taxpayers is improved. There is no way to say this other than it's very exciting."
But it also forces the state agency -- which historically has provided specialized equipment for the deaf not stocked in every shopping mall -- to rethink its role. Roy said the commission likely will shift its focus to advocacy issues.
For Moody, such changes have meant the difference between pursuing the same career she planned before losing her hearing -- or the ones suggested by a rehabilitation service: Data entry clerk or beautician.
"In the business world, people sometimes feel your intellectual ability is somehow on the same level as your hearing ability," said Moody, a Southern University graduate who has a master's degree from the University of Phoenix. "I've run the whole gamut with technology, but it's been worth it."
The former model mysteriously began losing her hearing in 1988 -- just two weeks before she turned 25.
Initially, she used a TDD, but found it limiting because it could only communicate with other TDDs. Then came a portable Voice Carry Over, or VCO, which allowed Moody to talk directly to the person she called and have responses typed back to her using a relay service.
When Moody went to work for Apple Computer in 1995, she was given an alpha pager through which she could receive e-mails.
In her job with BlueCross BlueShield, most of Moody's communication is over the Internet via e-mail. She's also gotten a cochlear implant, a device that transmits sound by stimulating nerve fibers in the inner ear.
But what thrills Moody the most about the impact of mainstream technology is that what it means for her 15-year-old daughter Racheal, a sophomore at Lee High School who is also hearing impaired.
"I tell her, 'Whatever you want to do, you can do," she said. "Your disability does not have to hold you back at all. She wanted to be the first deaf astronaut. Now it's massage therapy."
When David Moores started cleaning cages after school at the Animal Medical Center in Covington, colleagues would flash the lights to let him know it was time to go home.
Today, the 27-year-old grandson of author Walker Percy, who was born with a hearing loss that got worse over time, is a veterinarian in that same clinic.
The LSU School of Veterinary Medicine graduate communicates with clients using e-mail, instant messages and -- before he got a cochlear implant last July -- a relay service through which an interpreter read his typewritten messages to the person on the other end of the telephone.
Moores said the technological developments can make a difference -- but ultimately it depends on whether the hearing-impaired person is willing to take advantage of it.
"I know quite a few deaf people, and some take it upon themselves to learn how to better themselves and get an education. They have a drive to succeed and they have resources and they know how to make use of that," Moores said. "But some don't have that kind of will."
He remembers when his mother, Ann Moores -- who is also deaf -- got her first Blackberry. She was so excited about the prospect of communicating with family and friends, he noted, that she exceeded the messaging limit in the first two days.
In a conference room at Hamilton Telecommunications on Bluebonnet Centre Boulevard, employee Henry Brinkmann has assembled a display showing the evolution of the technology that over the years has helped the hearing impaired communicate.
But the businessman -- who is deaf -- said none of those earlier devices offered the kinds of opportunities the hearing impaired now have.
"It's truly leveling the playing field," Brinkmann said. "It's a whole new world for us."