Action For Captions

Subtitles and Live Captioning Software for Deaf Children and Young Adults at home, in Schools and Universities

If deaf children cannot hear spoken words accurately or lip read a masked speaker they will miss critical learning and find it hard to socially interact. We want spoken language to be inclusive and accessible to all. 

There is a solution that can benefit not just deaf children but anyone who has language difficulties or English as a second language.

We need to take action now!

Our Story

It wasn’t until the start of lockdown that we as parents realised how inaccessible online lessons and online interaction were for our deaf children. We saw our children struggle to understand during live class time, online taught lessons, watching educational videos or keeping up with online social interaction. This gave us an insight into the challenges they face in learning and communicating with friends.

There has been an assumption that spoken language is accessible for all and this isn’t the case. 

The Problem 

It is recognised by educators that the pandemic has caused vulnerable children to fall behind further than ever. Home schooling and disrupted access to specialist support has broadened the gap between deaf children and many of their peers. These shortcomings, if not addressed, will lead to greater inequality later on in life.

Initiatives to supply devices to vulnerable children have made a fantastic positive impact, however devices and proposed longer days at school in themselves will not solve the challenges that deaf children face. A deaf child needs to work harder than their hearing peers to access the language required to learn and participate.  

When back in school a deaf child and young adult, even with a hearing device, faces challenges:

• MASKS preventing lip reading,
• being located to see the speaker to lip read,
• having to recognise the sound before being able to process it,
• the acoustics of the room and the noise in their environment.

The Solution 

There is an affordable solution that can benefit not just deaf children but other children and young adults who have language difficulties or English as a second language.

We would like to put subtitles and live captions on all content in schools, colleges and universities by using cutting edge speech-to-text software. 

By using this specialist software in real time, text is always available across learning platforms, online, in the classroom, in lectures, in assembly or on a device at home.

The Benefits 

By using speech-to-text software alongside the spoken word and visual content, children and young adults can use various senses to the best of their abilities to aid their learning. Further, they may find improved independence in their learning from not having to rely on others. Crucially, teachers and teachers’ assistants will have more time for teaching and supporting learning styles, which benefits everyone.

The Future

This software acts as a stepping stone to a more accessible future. We still need to make sure content makers and presenters consider the senses of their audience. In an ideal world all content should be accessible to everyone and consequently, this will be the focus of our future campaigns!!! 

To all those who already include and use subtitles and live captions – it is appreciated as it makes a huge difference to a great number of people. 

Please help to fund the installation of speech-to-text captioning. We do not want any child or young adult to be left behind.

THANK YOU!!!