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I'm glad that they claimed not to know sign language. There's a tendency among the healthy and able-bodied (myself included) to assume that if someone is deaf o
by jddj 7y ago
I'm glad that they claimed not to know sign language. There's a tendency among the healthy and able-bodied (myself included) to assume that if someone is deaf or has a disability which prevents them from speaking then they've likely had it from birth and will have developed means of communicating in other ways.
But there are a slew of accidents and later-onset diseases which could leave someone suddenly unable to speak and without the time to learn to compensate with something like sign language.
When a close relative was diagnosed with one of these diseases in Australia, their doctor gave them a website to use where they could type and somebody would play their part on a phonecall. Their staff would call the desired number and transcribe the person's response, reading out in turn any (typed) response from my relative.
I don't know who ran or funded the service (likely local, state or federal government, because Australia is pretty good like that), or what it was called, but I have a great deal of respect for the program.
- justinlink 7y agoI believe these have existed for years in the US too. I had a deaf friend in high school and she could call me using a service where they received typed messages from her. It was 20 years ago so I don't remember exactly how it worked on her end but I remember receiving those calls each time from a different voice.
- imglorp 7y agoYes and there's also a similar service where a signing person can video chat to a sign language interpreter who voice calls the hearing person while signing in the video chat. Proficient signers are very high bandwidth.
- codingdave 7y agoI used to have regular calls with a sysadmin who connected to our service using a relay service. This was back in the early 90s before the internet was pervasive, so we replicated databases via modems, and that involved coordination with the various admins. The relay operators were always quite clear when they called, letting me know they were acting as a relay for the guy, and despite our fairly technical discussions, it worked. I won't claim it was the easiest communications I've ever had, but we kept our systems connected.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- yeehaw5002 7y agoIP Replay. as dumb teenagers my friends and i abused this system for prank calls
- ajdlinux 7y agoThat would most likely be the National Relay Service, which is run by the Federal Government: https://www.communications.gov.au/what-we-do/phone/services-people-disability/accesshub/national-relay-service https://www.communications.gov.au/what-we-do/phone/services-... The NRS runs a bunch of services, including 106, the emergency number for teletypewriters, which IIRC was one of the first emergency call services in the world designed specifically for the disabled.
- jddj 7y agoThis was definitely it, thanks.
- wjnc 7y agoThanks, you answered the one question I had after reading this. I thought most people unable to speak would know sign language, but that's clearly false. I take pride in the fact that our office is really accessible. Once they shut down one of the elevator for "walking week", increasing the load on all the others. One of my co-workers in a wheelchair had to wait multiple elevators multiple times since they were so packed. So I cold mailed the head of services to get him access to the service elevator and they happily obliged.