Everett Rowlett never knew why people were laughing the first three times he rode Disneyland’s Jungle Cruise.

But the Disney employee finally got the jokes when he recently rode with a sign language interpreter for the first time.

“This one was exciting and fun,” said Rowlett, a Disney maintenance and repair worker for 28 years, through a sign-language interpreter.

Rowlett and a Disney interpreter recently demonstrated how a new sign-language service works at the Disneyland Resort.

The Resort recently assigned sign-language interpreters to regular shifts at eight locations at the two parks. Visitors can pick up schedules to see when the interpreters are available, roughly every two hours per location on most days. Previously, visitors would have to request interpreters, who were provided for special occasions on a case-by-case basis.

Read More Here

See a previous story and the locations of the new sign-language services here.

June 24-27, 2010 31st Silent Weekend (Orlando, FL)

Florida Hotel at the Florida Mall
1500 Sand Lake Road
Orlando, FL

*ASL Services, Inc., the parent company of Gracias VRS, will have a booth open Friday and Saturday from 7:30am-5:30pm.

We would like to give a big THANKS to all those participating in Silent Weekend 2010 this week in Orlando, Florida. Come visit our team at the ASL Services, Inc. Booth and spin the wheel for some great prizes! You can also stop by to get more information on Internship and employment opportunities with ASL Services, Inc. Look forward to seeing you there!

More info:

March 13 – April 15, 2010 is Deaf History Month

In observance of Deaf History Month, Described and Captioned Media Program (DCMP) will be showing online its two captioned educational films for the public to enjoy.

The first one will be a demonstration of its first captioned educational film that was ever created in 1962. What did it look like or has captioning changed since then? Curious?

You can find out by watching Rockets: How They Work on the YouTube channel on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdMgm3oOrF8

A resource containing both the original script and caption script for Rockets (PDF) is also provided for those interested n examining the information that was included in early captioned films, when comprehensive guidelines such as the Captioning Key were not yet available.

The second one is a rare video of Robert “Bob” Panara, renowned deaf educator, which DCMP will be launching this week. Please watch “Robert Panara: a Profile” on the DCMP YouTube channel for a background about him and his telling about the history of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at the Rochester Institute of Technology (where he was the first deaf professor). There is also a sampling of interpretive poetry, which includes several short haikus, favorites such as John McCrae’s In Flanders Fields, and even one of Bob’s original poems, On His Deafness.

http://www.dcmp.org/FlashLanding/SecureFlash.aspx?G=32491 In addition to the version posted on YouTube, there is also one available with audio description of Bob’s poetry in ASL

Deaf History Month Trivia:

1. Who is currently known as the Father of Closed Captioning?

2. What is the name of deaf author who wrote, “Teaching from the Heart and Soul: The Robert F. Panara Story?”

Answers:

1. Dr. Malcolm J. Norwood. In December 1979, Karen Brickett had an interview with him at the University of Maryland. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qDzvP3CASE&feature=channel

2. Dr. Harry G. Lang

http://gupress.gallaudet.edu/reviews/TFHSrevw.html

Interested to know more about DCMP’s resources, please visit http://www.dcmp.com

DCMP is funded by the US Department of Education and administrated by the National Association of the Deaf. They have the newsletter that you may sign up. .

Submitted by Alice L. Hagemeyer, President

FOLDA and creator of the “I Made America Great” Series

http://www.imadeamericagreat.webs.com

Gracias VRS Supports the NAD Request to the FCC to Give Equal Telephone Access to the Deaf

Gracias VRS is a provider of VRS, giving equal communication opportunity to the deaf community. This federally funded service (through FCC and NECA) may be in jeopardy without your support. Gracias VRS service is here to stay, however, new restrictions may limit VRS calls that are important to the deaf community.

Excerpt from the NAD Website: The NAD learned that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has not paid Video Relay Service (VRS) providers for certain types of VRS calls since July 2009. As a result, some VRS providers are not connecting or may stop connecting some VRS calls. This is not functionally equivalent to the communication access that hearing telephone users enjoy.
…
The NAD looks forward to working with the FCC, NECA, VRS providers, and other stakeholders in the development of rules and appropriate procedures to ensure the integrity of the TRS Fund and achieve functional equivalency for all deaf and hard of hearing consumers.

To read the rest of the article and to leave a comment with the FCC please visit the NAD website on the subject here.

With tax season in full swing, did you know that deaf and hard of hearing consumers can find answers to their tax questions directly from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in American Sign Language (ASL)?

The IRS has built a YouTube channel complete with a series of ASL videos-that are also voiced and captioned-on a myriad of tax topics, including e-File and Direct Deposit, Free File and Fillable Forms, Education Tax Credits, Unemployment Compensation and Home Energy Credits. ASL videos on many more important subjects for taxpayers will be added as they become available.

Just go to the IRS YouTube channel here to see ASL videos that will help you complete your taxes this year. You can post and share these videos through your websites, vlogs or other social network venues. Click on the subscriptions button at the top of the YouTube page and you can find out right away when future videos become available.

http://www.youtube.com/user/IRSvideosASL

A wide range of helpful IRS videos in ASL, voice and captions are available on the IRS YouTube channel.

Many federal laws have been enacted to require greater access to telecommunications. There is only one problem – the federal laws that we worked so hard to enact over the past 20 years have not kept pace with many new technologies. For instance, television shows that are re-shown over the Internet are under no requirement to be captioned – even if they had captions when they were shown on TV! Also, small TVs, cell phones, PDAs, and other mobile devices are not required to display captions, even though they are now capable of showing TV shows. Also, for now, 9-1-1 emergency call centers cannot accept calls from people who need to communicate in video or via pagers.

During the spring of 2007, a new coalition, the Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology (COAT), was established to try to fix these problems. Founding organizations include Communication Service for the Deaf (CSD), the National Association of the Deaf (NAD), the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), and the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB). As of April 10, 2009, over 230 national, regional, state or local organizations are members of the COAT.

(more…)