Miss-Delectable
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Tell Mel: Technology helps the deaf communicate | The News-Press | news-press.com
Dolores Ott is severely hard of hearing and uses the Florida Relay Service to make and receive telephone calls.
In order to call Ott, you first dial 711, which connects to an operator who will then call Ott’s phone number. That call hooks up to a teletypewriter, commonly called a TTY, and the operator types out what you say. Ott could then respond by speaking or by typing back. If she chose to type back, that would also go through the operator who would read her response to the caller.
This service works well for Ott except for one thing. That’s when she has to enter her phone number on an online form. It won’t accept the 711 prefix. But without first dialing 711 it’s impossible to contact her by phone.
“The message comes back, ‘Enter a valid phone number,’” Ott wrote to me in an email. “What on earth are people like me supposed to do? We cannot make a connection using only the given phone number without going through the relay service provided for the deaf and/or hard of hearing user. ... (I) thought this might be something your column could address sometime because frankly it’s a (bother) for me to come up against this nonsense time after time.”
I wondered how other hearing-impaired users dealt with this. So I called the Deaf Service Center of Southwest Florida and spoke with Executive Director Lori Timson.
Timson had a practical suggestion: Put the number of a hearing friend or relative in the form. But then she said something else that was really interesting.
“I can’t tell you the last time I gave a TTY out,” Timson said. “We don’t get requests for them. People use video relay.”
Video relay uses a webcam and monitor to make and receive calls. A hearing-impaired person still goes through a third person, but instead of typing in English with a TTY, they can communicate using American Sign Language. It allows the deaf person to use their own language, Timson said, then have it interpreted for the hearing person to understand. And if two people who know sign language are using a video relay system, they don’t need an interpreter. They could see each other and talk in sign language.
The other advantage of the video relay, Timson said, is that it uses a 10-digit phone number. So it doesn’t have the 711 issue that caused Ott so much consternation.
When I called Ott, I used the TTY relay service to do it. Ott told me she never heard of video relay. She doesn’t use sign language, but she does read lips. So being able to see the interpreter talking would make things much easier for her. And it would be faster than the TTY and make the conversation a bit more natural. When she and I used the relay, we had to say “go ahead” every time we finished talking. It reminded me of using a walkie-talkie.
Ott is computer savvy (especially for an octogenarian) but said she would likely need help setting up the system. She, and anyone else who is deaf or hard of hearing and would benefit from the video relay should contact the Deaf Service Center at 461-0334 for a voice call or 461-0438 if you are still using TTY.
Dolores Ott is severely hard of hearing and uses the Florida Relay Service to make and receive telephone calls.
In order to call Ott, you first dial 711, which connects to an operator who will then call Ott’s phone number. That call hooks up to a teletypewriter, commonly called a TTY, and the operator types out what you say. Ott could then respond by speaking or by typing back. If she chose to type back, that would also go through the operator who would read her response to the caller.
This service works well for Ott except for one thing. That’s when she has to enter her phone number on an online form. It won’t accept the 711 prefix. But without first dialing 711 it’s impossible to contact her by phone.
“The message comes back, ‘Enter a valid phone number,’” Ott wrote to me in an email. “What on earth are people like me supposed to do? We cannot make a connection using only the given phone number without going through the relay service provided for the deaf and/or hard of hearing user. ... (I) thought this might be something your column could address sometime because frankly it’s a (bother) for me to come up against this nonsense time after time.”
I wondered how other hearing-impaired users dealt with this. So I called the Deaf Service Center of Southwest Florida and spoke with Executive Director Lori Timson.
Timson had a practical suggestion: Put the number of a hearing friend or relative in the form. But then she said something else that was really interesting.
“I can’t tell you the last time I gave a TTY out,” Timson said. “We don’t get requests for them. People use video relay.”
Video relay uses a webcam and monitor to make and receive calls. A hearing-impaired person still goes through a third person, but instead of typing in English with a TTY, they can communicate using American Sign Language. It allows the deaf person to use their own language, Timson said, then have it interpreted for the hearing person to understand. And if two people who know sign language are using a video relay system, they don’t need an interpreter. They could see each other and talk in sign language.
The other advantage of the video relay, Timson said, is that it uses a 10-digit phone number. So it doesn’t have the 711 issue that caused Ott so much consternation.
When I called Ott, I used the TTY relay service to do it. Ott told me she never heard of video relay. She doesn’t use sign language, but she does read lips. So being able to see the interpreter talking would make things much easier for her. And it would be faster than the TTY and make the conversation a bit more natural. When she and I used the relay, we had to say “go ahead” every time we finished talking. It reminded me of using a walkie-talkie.
Ott is computer savvy (especially for an octogenarian) but said she would likely need help setting up the system. She, and anyone else who is deaf or hard of hearing and would benefit from the video relay should contact the Deaf Service Center at 461-0334 for a voice call or 461-0438 if you are still using TTY.