 Coming up on this edition of Abledon on Air, we talk about deaf and hard of hearing services with part of Dell deaf and hard of hearing services in Vermont. Coming up next, stay tuned. Major sponsors for Abledon on Air include Washington County Mental Health where hope and support come together. Media sponsors for Abledon on Air include Parkchester Times, Muslim Community Report, WWW, this is the Bronx.info, Associated Press Media Editors, New York Powered Online Newspaper, U.S. Press Corps Domestic and International, Anchor FM and Spotify. Partners for Abledon on Air include Yahad of New York and New England where everyone belongs, the Orthodox Union, the Division for the Blind and Visually Impaired of Vermont, the Vermont Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired, Center Vermont Habitat for Humanity, Montefere Medical Center of the Bronx, Rose of Kennedy Center of Bronx, New York, Albert Einstein College of Medicine of the Bronx, Abledon on Air has been seen in the following publications, Parkchester Times, WWW, this is the Bronx.com, New York Powered Online Newspaper, Muslim Community Report, www.h.com and the Montpelier Bridge. Abledon on Air is part of the following organizations, the National Academy of Television, Arts and Sciences, Boston, New England Chapter and the Society of Professional Journalists. Welcome to this edition of Abledon on Air, the one and only program that focuses on the needs, concerns and achievements of the differently abledon. I'm your host Lauren Seiler. We would like to thank the partner for this particular program today, Disability and Independent Living Services of Vermont and the Division of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services with us to discuss this important topic is Laura Siegel, Director of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services of Vermont. Thank you for joining us on this edition of Abledon on Air. Thank you. Okay, so tell me the missions and goals of your part of your agency with Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services. Sure, and I just want to clarify before we start that it's not a division per se. We work under the Department of Disabilities and Aging and Independent Living. Apologize. Oh, no, no, no worries, just to clarify. Okay, so what are the missions and goals of your division that works with Dell? Sure, so my primary role is to enhance and improve communication access for both local and state agencies here in Vermont. Okay, what types of services do you have and can people avail themselves of? Sure, so I often provide a lot of different types of resources. For instance, one-on-one counseling consultation, I should say, referrals. I try to make sure that I connect people with the appropriate resources that are available in the state. The main thing that I do is to try to cover up some of the or to accommodate some of those gaps and services that exist. When you say gaps in services that exist, what type of gaps or defined gaps? Okay, so for instance, a lot of community events don't necessarily provide interpreting or captioning services to make them accessible. So we want to make sure that there's better access for Deaf, Hard of Hearing and DeafBlind people so that they can take advantage of those events just like anybody else in the community. Okay, so you mentioned captioning services, what exactly are those and why is it so hard for people to access those types of services? So captioning services, there are some companies that work with the state, but it's limited in terms of captioning services. There are captioning services nationwide as well. That provides access for people who can read, so it's done by a captionist listening to what's being said and then typing that information into a device so that the captions can be created. In terms of why it's so challenging to access those services for accommodations in general, it's often a cost issue. So captioning is a paid service, correct? That's correct, yes. With sign language interpretation, since we're talking about that, per se, also, is sign language interpretation a paid service? I mean, is there pro bono services that provide sign language or not really? Not really. It's most appropriate to consider it a paid service. Some interpreters do volunteer their time in certain settings for particular events that are not required by the Americans with Disabilities Act to provide access. So, for instance, for weddings and funerals, sometimes an interpreter will negotiate a reduced fee or pro bono work, but typically both captioned services and interpreting services are paid services. When we say the Americans, I know we didn't discuss some of these questions, but I'm just going to go top my head. When we say the Americans with Disabilities Act, how do you negotiate deaf services within? Does the American with Disabilities Act become stronger for people who are deaf and hard of hearing or vice versa or just the opposite? Am I saying it right? Yeah, yeah, I think I know what you're saying. Please forgive me if I make a mistake. Oh, no, no, you're totally fine, Lawrence. So, with the ADA, they use the term reasonable accommodations, so they don't necessarily expect people to break the bank, if you will. Well, how expensive is this stuff? Interpreters generally charge between $60 to $100 per hour. So, if you wanted somebody for an all-day event or something like that, you wanted to provide captioning services all day, it might be a couple thousand dollars for an all-day event. So, go ahead, finish what you were saying. Oh, so, right. So, I do encourage people not to necessarily expect that they're going to get the absolute most top best services for everything that they need. It sometimes, if you're doing a series of events in a year, maybe you have two or three where you provide interpreters as a given, and then in other circumstances, it depends on if you get an actual request. So, you want to make sure that you're doing some planning about that, maybe in your five to ten-year budgeting plan, to think about how much money are we going to put aside to make sure that we're providing access. So, anytime you're doing budgeting for those kinds of community events, it's good to think about incorporating some funds for access. But, example, let's say a person with a disability is going to college or a school. Can a person request, what does your office do, or how does your office work with students who need services like hearing aids and sign language interpretation? So, we don't work with colleges per se. Colleges typically have their own disability or access office where those services are organized through and where they're providing those accommodations that they're required to do likewise in the schools. But, for example, there's one college that got in touch with me that wanted some consultation. They were hosting a two-week writing course and they didn't realize until pretty late in the game that they had a student who applied there who was deafblind. So, they got in touch with me and said, you know, gee, how can we make appropriate accommodations for this student in this situation? So, I was able to sit down with them in a consulting role and make some recommendations. This was a small college that didn't have, you know, significant funds, but they didn't want to prevent this student from having a really wonderful opportunity. And so, we talked about, you know, students coming in from out of state. That student maybe has a relationship with their vocational rehabilitation services that might be able to provide some of the funding to cover the cost. So, it might be a shared cost with the college. So, we look into sort of some creative avenues that might be possible to bring together different fiduciary sources to make the opportunities more accessible. So, let's talk about other services. Recently in the news, they had mentioned, and this is going back a couple weeks, a couple months, matter of fact, where hearing aids are now considered, you can get them over the counter instead of having a prescription. What is your thought on that particular situation? And in terms of other situations for services for the deaf and hard of hearing, do you think there should be more, how can I put this, more services in terms of hearing aids for people who can't afford them? How does your office help with those things, if at all? Okay. So, recently, if it's too long ago, no, no, you're good. That's, no, it's fine. So, about two years ago, the legislature passed a hearing aid bill that covered private insurance, which is separate from over-the-counter purchases, which you just referenced. That's at the federal level, that law around that approval that came from actual Joe Biden signed that into law. So, that over-the-counter hearing aid purchase is a federal law. When you talk about over-the-counter hearing aids, those are most appropriate for people with mild to moderate hearing loss. So, what is the difference between mild to moderate, and what are the type of levels? There's basically four main levels. So, there's mild, then moderate, and then severe, and profound. I'm not an audiologist, so I can't probably speak to that to, to, to fulsomely, but anyway, you could bring in an audiologist to get a little more information, but that's the basics. Those are the four general levels. So, for over-the-counter hearing aids, typically those are for people who are hard of hearing. So, in other words, people who hear somewhat, probably enough to hear on the phone, but need just a little augmentation. For someone like me, I wouldn't benefit from that kind of hearing aid, because I'm deaf. I'm not part of it. You're completely deaf. Severe to profound is with the technical term. So, I do use two hearing aids, but I have to use prescription hearing aids. The over-the-counter ones would not be appropriate in my case. Because, because it just, it just doesn't work for you, or a prescription is better. Oh, if it's a difference in quality so much, I think it's more that the over-the-counter hearing aids are designed specifically for people with mild to moderate hearing loss, and mine is probably just, it requires a more advanced technology. So, it's more the technology. So, let's talk, so let's talk a little bit about your story. How did you get to be the director of services for the deaf and hard of hearing, and if you don't mind, it's up to you how you want to deal with this. How did you become deaf, and maybe so people can understand deafness a little bit more? Sure. So, I became the director based on probably 20 years of experience in different jobs, teaching sign language, working one-on-one with deaf-blind people, providing advocacy services, working with deaf and hard of hearing people. So, in a whole range of different kinds of work settings, and I think the experience is really what brought me to my current position. So, were you born deaf? No, I was not. I was born able to hear, and I actually have a twin sister, I'm a twin, and both of us were born hearing, and we were pre-needs, we were premature. So, as a result of that, we were more vulnerable to illness, and I became sick, and at some point my parents realized that I wasn't responding. So, I was diagnosed at 16 months, but when exactly I lost my hearing, we don't know. It was probably as a result of antibiotics. Gentamicin was an antibiotic that was given at the time, so that was probably the immediate proximal cause. And I first started wearing hearing aids when I was about 18 months old, and have used them ever since. What are some of the misconceptions around people who are deaf or hard of hearing for people that don't know enough about it? Well, for example, people think that ASL and English are the same, which they're not. They don't realize that they're quite different, or they assume that ASL is a universal language. It's not that either. Every country has their own signed language. Some people assume that every deaf person is a lip-reader, and is very skilled at lip-reading, and that's certainly not the case. That skill really varies widely among deaf and hard of hearing people. Some people assume that deaf people can't hold a job. That's not true. Right, exactly. Definitely not true. Go ahead. I'm just thinking of some other misconceptions that people assume, oh, well, you should get a cochlear implant, or you have a hearing aid, or you're all set. You can function just like anybody else. Well, talk about history of people. Lou Ferrigno, who used to be the Incredible Hulk, he had a cochlear implant. He was 85% deaf. Let's talk a little bit about the history of how words were used, because way back when people who were deaf-blind and other disabilities within them, talking about way back 1800s, they were institutionalized. A lot of people with disabilities were institutionalized. What are some of the words that described in terms of advocacy? What are some of the words that described the deaf and hard of hearing way back when? Past, present, and future, how have we come a long way with advocacy and how not to use those words when describing people? If I said that right. Yeah, so I think, for example, hearing impaired is a term that you hear more and more people trying to avoid that term nowadays because it's kind of a demeaning term or can be- Demeaning? How so? Because the term impaired by itself, if you think about that, if you look up the definition of the word impaired, it really means all kinds of negative things. If you pick that apart, it doesn't sound very positive or very neutral. We try to use more positive terms like deaf, hard of hearing, late deafened for people to lose their hearing later in life, deaf people with disabilities, hard of hearing with low vision. There are a bunch of different ways to describe people. The important thing is just to let people come up with their own terms, how they feel comfortable identifying. So to respect people's own labels. Well, yeah, they were institutionalized way back when and not treated to, you know, they're still, for example, just so you know, there's still 41 states that institutionalized people with disabilities. Oh, really? Yeah, and they don't treat people quite as the way they want to be treated. But not in Vermont? No, nobody has been institutionalized and they stopped that. No, yeah. Ever since Brandon State School, they have stopped. Right. Yeah. So what other services does your agency provide? Gosh, every day in my job is different. So we respond to issues as they arise basically. Trying to think of some other examples that I haven't shared. Let's see. Oh, so for example, people will often ask me, how do you find resources for accessible housing? So for instance, Yeah, housing is a big issue. Housing is a huge issue. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. So for instance, visual fire alarms, so that if you're deaf, you need a fire alarm that flashes. So where do I find housing? People might ask that has that that has a visible door bell, you know, with the light that flashes when someone rings the front doorbell. How do you, you know, what kind of equipment do you have to, for instance, to shake the bed for a wake-up alarm or for a fire alarm? So what sorts of accessible house equipment would there be? So for the phone, people might either have a wireless or a wired phone system that would have a flashing light again or a vibration of some kind to let them know their phone's ringing. So all kinds of technology that people need to have in terms of their home when they're choosing a place to live that might not be automatically available that they would have to purchase or add. Why are people so afraid to sometimes ask for services, especially if you're deaf or hard to hear? They don't want to be perceived as being a burden. That may be part of it. Or they may have a feeling that the things that they're asking for are costly. So that may be part of the hesitation. Or that even if the cost is an issue, that they may not be available. So are there grants available through the state to get some of this equipment if you can't afford it? So there is funding available through the equipment distribution program. But again, it's a very limited fund. So, you know, you have to qualify. There's some income guidelines and so forth. And those are specifically around communication access. So let's talk about that for a minute. What exactly is the equipment program that you're describing? Yeah, it's called the Equipment Distribution Program. And the funds are through the Department of Public Service. There's actually two components to that. There's the Universal Service Fund. That's on everybody's phone bill. So there's a small fee that's on your monthly phone bill. And that money is collected. It's a very small amount on your bill. It's maybe 1%. But it goes toward this Equipment Distribution Program, as well as providing support for 911 centers, telecommunications relay services. So there are a number of things that are supported by that fund. And then there's also an annual $75,000 fund that was created by the legislature. What exactly is that? It's to cover all those things that I just mentioned. Oh, okay. Those needs that people would have. So let's talk about equipment, even though we don't have any here. What is the TTY system? Because that's a big thing that's been around for ages. And then the other type of technology that is provided for deaf or hard of hearing for like telephones or operators and that kind of thing. Sure. So TTYs, it's interesting because a lot of people are familiar with TTYs, but they're almost obsolete. You don't see a lot of TTYs in use nowadays because they're an analog technology. They're not a digital technology. We're kind of in a digital age now. So TTY is TTY where someone would call up and the operator would be on the other end of the line. Yeah, they would have a relay operator, relay service. So anybody with any kind of phone service could use that, could use the relay service to contact someone. So the operator would have a keyboard and then they, you know, anybody could call a person who was a TTY user. So it's part of the whole telecommunications opportunities, but a little piece of cool trivia that I'll share with your listeners. You know Alexander Graham Bell, you've heard of him who invented the phone. He's also been a teacher. Yes, and also a teacher. But just an interesting fact about him, he invented the phone as a way, he thought a way to communicate with his deaf mother and his deaf wife, but ironically the phone as it was developed really was not accessible to deaf people until the 1980s, 1970s, 1980s. So the phone, all of those years when you think about it was developed in the 19th century and it was out there, but it really didn't benefit deaf people for a long, long time. And I think it's funny that people who've used the relay service often don't know, they think it's a hoax when they get a call through the relay service or they think it's something related to running like a relay race or something. So you have to educate people about when you get a relay call not to hang up. Why do people get scared of relay calls? Because it's new to them. It's sort of foreign. It's not something they're used to. They don't realize that, oh there's a third party on the call who's allowing us to communicate with each other. They just don't understand. So let's talk about some of the people in history that revolutionized services for the deaf. Helen Keller, Alexander Graham Bell and others. Go ahead. You mentioned Alexander Graham Bell. Sure, right. I'm trying to think of some other folks, some other examples that might be interesting. Andrew Foster is someone who was the first African American graduate of Gallaudet University, got his bachelor's there, and opened 32 deaf schools around the continent of Africa, so a very important historical figure, really promoting education in Africa. So he's one just historical figure that's very interesting, I think. Another example would be Alice Cogswell. She was a little girl who happened to have a meeting with a man named Thomas Edward Gallaudet, and when they first met, he realized that gee, here's this deaf child and there's no formal education for deaf children. So he ended up taking a trip to Europe for 15 months and did all kinds of research in different countries to see how are the Europeans educating their deaf children. And he met a teacher in Paris named Laurent Claire, and he brought Claire back to the US with him, and they established the very first deaf school in America called the American School for the Deaf in 1817, a couple years after they returned. And after that time, the whole system of deaf schools started to be established throughout the US, but that was the very first deaf school. So Alice Cogswell had a key part of that history, and that school is in Harkford, Connecticut. So has education of the deaf changed over the years? Yes, no? Yes, very definitely. Yeah. So one of the things that I've noticed is that, unfortunately, a lot of the deaf schools have started to go under. I mean, there's still quite a number of them around the country. Including Gallaudet. Absolutely. Yeah, in Washington, D.C. Now, why go under? Is it because of funding? Probably because of funding. I think that's probably a major reason, or because there aren't enough students enrolled possibly, so they weren't able to make a go of it. That happened to our school here in Vermont. The number of deaf students dropped. What was the name of the school? To place their children in public schools, Austin, the Austin School. So that school is no more? That school is no more. Yeah, they were established in 1904, and they closed in 2014. Oh, wow. Is there anything that we haven't covered? Gosh, oh yes. I think a couple of things that I'd like to mention. One is, you sent me a question, and you were wondering about how many people in Vermont have hearing loss, and I would say it's about... I hope that wasn't a bad question. No, no, no. No, it's a great question. Yeah. It's a question that's commonly asked. Unfortunately, we don't have a really accurate count because we don't really know, in terms of the census, people don't always reply to the question on the census, so it's a little bit difficult to get an accurate count. But in Vermont, we have between 400 and 500 culturally deaf people. And then right now, as of last year, we started a program through a two-year grant where we're serving about 32 deafblind people. Not all of them identify as deafblind, and some of them are signers, and some of them are not, some of them are hard of hearing, some of them have partial vision. So you can imagine it's a mixed group that we're calling a deafblind cohort. We started last year being able to provide some opportunities for people to get out in their communities more so that they weren't feeling so isolated. So now we're trying to figure out how we can extend that program beyond the life of the two-year grant. So the two-year grant is just a pilot program right now. Okay, and the two-year grant does what? It allows people who are deafblind or who have limited vision, limited hearing to get out into their communities more to participate in activities. So if they want to take a Tai Chi class or they want to go have a manicure or they want to go buy a pair of shoes or whatever it is that that particular individual wants to do or providing ways for them to access those things. Because they just couldn't or lack of money? Lack of money is part of it, but they don't necessarily qualify for other types of services because they don't have other disabilities and so they don't fall into those categories. They have vision and hearing loss but not some of these other things. Okay, so before we get your address or phone number, what are the future goals of your part of your agency when providing services or going forward? Again, to enhance defined creative ways to provide funding and resources to folks for access to assistive technology and you know of course we're part of Dale so we follow their mission to make the state the best we can be to make living situations for people disabilities better so that people who have disabilities can feel respected and live a full life. So where can people turn if they want to find out about services? Well, they can go to the Dale website. That's probably the easiest way and to find my page there and all of my contact information is there at the bottom of the page. So it's www.dale.vermont.gov. Okay, so it's www.dale.vermont.gov. Okay, well I would like to thank you for joining me on this edition of Abledon on Air. For more information on services for the deaf and hard of hearing, you can contact Dale, the disability and independent living at www.dale.vermont.gov and also if you want to find out more information on Abledon on Air of what you've seen today and other programs, you can go to www.orkamedia.net and for those that would like to find out more about Abledon on Air through our new blog, you can go to www.blogger.com. That's www.blogger.com which is part of Blogspot, the Abledon on Air newspaper blog. Well, thank you again for joining us on this edition of Abledon on Air. I'm Lauren Seiler. See you next time. Major sponsors for Abledon on Air include Washington County Mental Health where hope and support come together. Media sponsors for Abledon on Air include Park Chester Times, Muslim Community Report, WWW, this is the Bronx.info, Associated Press Media Editors, New York Powered Online Newspaper, U.S. Press Corps Domestic and International, Anchor FM and Spotify. Partners for Abledon on Air include Yahad of New York and New England where everyone belongs, the Orthodox Union, the Division for the Blind and Visionally Impaired of Vermont, the Vermont Association for the Blind and Visionally Impaired, Central Vermont Habitat for Humanity, Montefiore Medical Center of the Bronx, Rose of Kennedy Center of Bronx, New York, Albert Einstein College of Medicine of the Bronx, Abledon on Air has been seen in the following publications, Park Chester Times, WWW, this is the Bronx.com, New York Powered Online Newspaper, Muslim Community Report, WWW.H.com and the Montpelier Bridge. Abledon on Air is part of the following organizations, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Boston, New England Chapter and the Society of Professional Journalists.