A win-win-win situation

For any organization that serve the deaf and hard of hearing population as well as for parents of deaf and hard of hearing children should take every effort to accommodate the potentially wide ranging communication access needs for an audience with deaf, hard of hearing, culturally deaf and hearing people when doing live presentations.

The concept and idea are quite simple. Three things are needed at the same time.

1) Real time captioner where the spoken words can be displayed visually for the audience.
2) Sign language interpreter.
3) Voice interpreter.

Using that prescription it wouldn't matter if the people in the audience or the speakers are deaf, hard of hearing, culturally deaf or hearing, communication access wouldn't be missed by anyone. This is how you "walk the walk" instead of talking out of the sides of your mouth.

Using the three communication access points satisfy 6 different possible outcomes for people who are:

1) Culturally deaf people who rely exclusively on sign language can take advantage of sign language interpreters.
2) Hard of hearing and deaf people who are not native signers can get assistance from captioning to help supplement their weak signing skill.
3) Hard of hearing and deaf people who can hear well with their hearing aids or cochlear implants and sign well can take advantage of either voice interpreter, captioning and/or sign language interpreter to help fill all of their communication gaps.
4) Hard of hearing people who can hear well and understand the spoken words well but do not know sign language can take advantage of voice interpreters and captioning.
5) Deaf people who do not know sign language or cannot hear well to understand the spoken words can take advantage of captioning.
6) Hearing people who do not know sign language can take advantage of voice interpreters and, if they need to, captioning.


If you're a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that caters to deaf and hearing people, and even hearing people such as parents of deaf and hard of hearing children would be wise to use take advantage of all three communication access points if you plan to do presentations at a workshop, training session, or at a convention where the public is invited. It just make smart sense to do this because no one would be left out of the communication loop. No one would feel discriminated or left out. Everybody can participate and be a part of the larger discussion. Catering to only a specific group of people with hearing loss or cultural identity helps no one when the bigger picture is to help everybody understand deafness-related issues and concerns.