Volume 16, No. 1, Winter 2008	Previous Issues Subscribe to AT Messenger Download PDF Viewer
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Telephone Captioning Services? Not in Delaware

Daniel Atkins, Legal Advocacy Director
Disabilities Law Program,
Community Legal Aid Society, Inc.

For many years, the primary mode of telephone communication for people who are deaf and hard of hearing has been TTY (telephone typewriters) and the Deaf Relay system. While TTY and Deaf Relay represented significant progress a decade ago, in the 21st century their limitations seem significant. Consider the time it takes to type a conversation on a TTY machine or the intrusion posed by an operator facilitating a private conversation between two people. It is not surprising that the use of TTYs and Deaf Relay have declined recently around the country. E-mailing, Instant Messaging, and video relay have increased, along with a new telephone technology called CapTel.

CapTel is a captioned telephone that looks and works like a telephone an office worker might use. It has a screen above the key pad that displays every word a caller says throughout a conversation. Suppose a person who is hard of hearing places a call to a colleague. The caller presses the caption button. When the receiver of the call picks up, behind the scenes, the CapTel captioning service uses voice recognition technology to transcribe everything that is said by the participant who has not pressed the caption button (the call receiver in this case, or it could be both parties if both press their caption button). The caller can hear what the other party is saying but can also read (almost simultaneously) what he is saying on the display on her telephone.

CapTel offers much more natural and less intrusive communication for both the caller and the receiver. It is analogous to television captioning, which once seemed novel and now is ubiquitous. First, the person who is communicating with the person who is deaf or hard of hearing will not be slowed down by having to type, or waiting for an operator to type, what she wants to say. Second, the intrusiveness of having a third party actively participating in the conversation is mitigated, if not completely eliminated (while the technology is operating, there is a human being, silently in the background, overseeing the transcription to make sure it is accurate). Third, the person who is hard of hearing has two ways of receiving the communication—both verbally if she has residual hearing and visually if she can read in the language of her choosing. Fourth, it levels the communication playing field for people who may not be able to afford a computer. The phone is much less expensive than a computer. Fifth, the service could help many more people than those who are deaf or hard of hearing. For instance, people who have vocal/voice problems could use the service to make their voice heard by the other party.

Perhaps the best feature of CapTel is that the service is free to users as part of the Telecommunications Relay Service (TRS) funds, which originate from Title IV of the Americans with Disabilities Act. CapTel has spread rapidly across the country. It is currently offered as part of Relay Service in every state except Alaska, Louisiana, Massachusetts, and Delaware. Why it is not yet offered in Delaware comes down to money. Without state legislation (which is being drafted) requiring the service to be funded in Delaware, it will not happen. As a result, consumers and advocates interested in seeing Delaware join the 21st century with regard to telephone communication for people with disabilities should contact their local Senate and House representatives and urge their support of this emerging initiative.

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