Learning Center

Accessible Video: What Does that Mean?

Videos can be a terrific medium for driving the point home, as long as the time is taken to ensure they'll drive that point home for everyone – including those with impairments that might make audio or visual information difficult to process. Overviews captioning and description, and discusses the importance of each. By Carlin Headrick, Learning Insights, 2013.

Let a Billion Readers Bloom: Same Language Subtitling (SlS) on Television for Mass Literacy

An estimated 250 million officially "literate" people in India cannot read a simple text. Same Language Subtitling (SLS) aims to make reading an integral part of the everyday life of all so-called "literate" people in India, especially the 250 million or so "literates" who quite possibly cannot yet read the day's newspaper headlines. The challenge is to transition large numbers of these budding readers to a functional reading level. By Brij Koth

Same Language Subtitling on Tv: Impact on Basic Reading Development Among Children and Adults

Same Language Subtitling (SLS) was implemented on two nationally telecast Hindi film song programs, Chitrahaar and Rangoli, between 2002 to present. SLS was designed to enable automatic and subconscious reading practice among over 100 million early literates for one hour/week. This study revisited more than 13,000 illiterates and semi-literates randomly drawn from five states, to get a snap-shot of their reading skills at the baseline before the SLS intervention (2002), a year later (2003), and again in 2007. Conclusion: SLS contributes significantly to reading improvement. By Brij Kothari, Tathagata Bandyopadhyay and Debanjan Bhattacharjee, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. (2007).

Using Captions to Reduce Barriers to Native American Student Success

Research on Closed Captioning

At the PAC3 at JALT Conference (2001), Gordon Liversidge discusses research showing that the presence of captioning aids comprehension and/or acquisition. However, most studies do not consider the link between viewing and activities. The first section explains the regional and disciplinary fragmentation of closed captioning research. The second section introduces comprehensive studies each of which contain a number of experiments. The third section presents smaller experiments that examine specific questions.

Effect of Caption Rate on the Comprehension of Educational Television Programmes by Deaf School Students

Published in Deafness and Education International (2009), several experts investigate how the rate of caption delivery affects the comprehension of educational programmes by better- and poorer-reading deaf school children. Participants watched three short documentaries, with captions presented at 90, 120, or 180 words per minute (wpm). Across both reading levels, comprehension was uniformly higher at 90 and 120 wpm than at 180 wpm. These results suggest that the rate of captions in children's television programmes can safely use 120 wpm as a slowest speed.

Captioning Timeline Highlights

Reviews major events in the history of captioning

Educational Media Producer and Accessibility Survey Results

In June 2008 a survey was conducted of the top 35 educational media producers/distributors in the United States. Each company was asked about its products and whether they were accessible, either via captioning or description (or if both were available), whether they were familiar with either accessibility option, and how many of their customers requested either or both on the media items they intended to purchase.

The Effects of Captions on Deaf Students' Content Comprehension, Cognitive Load, and Motivation in Online Learning

In 2011, the authors, Joong-O Yoon and Minjeong Kim, examined the effects of captions on deaf students' content comprehension, cognitive load, and motivation in online learning. The participants in the study were 62 deaf adult students who had limited reading comprehension skills and used sign language as a first language. Participants were randomly assigned to either the control group or the experimental group. The independent variable was the presence of captions, and the dependent variables were content comprehension, cognitive load, and motivation. The study applied a posttest-only control group design. The results of the experiment indicated a significant difference (t = -2.16, p < .05) in content comprehension but no statistically significant difference in cognitive load and motivation between the two groups. These results led to suggestions for improvements in learning materials for deaf individuals. (American Annals of the Deaf, v.156, no. 3, Summer 2011).

The Benefit to the Deaf of Real Time Captions in a Mainstream Classroom Environment

A dissertation submitted by Aaron Steinfeld, University of Michigan, 1999. Guidelines for the developers of captioning devices were made: (1) Real-time captions (RTC) are beneficial for both deaf and hearing students; (2) Location of a RTC display (desk or podium) has no impact on recall performance; (3) RTC devices should display at least four lines of text. However, there is only theoretical support for displays of more than four lines of text; (4) Higher amounts of sentence lag seem to improve performance (up to two lines or 6 seconds). It is possible that larger levels of lag may result in decreased performance; (5) A higher rate of presentation (200 vs. 160 wpm) appears to have a negative impact on performance for deaf subjects when lag is present, and; (6) Users are reasonably good at determining their ideal device parameters given the opportunity to experience their choices. However, deaf users may perform better with lag even though their preference for it is low.

Working Together for Families and Schools: Pepnet and the DCMP

Editors note: This post contains information that may be outdated. It is included for archival purposes.

Description + Captioning = Access

In an address on March 15, 2011, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) Secretary Duncan stated: "In order to win the future, as President Obama has challenged us, we must enable every single American to reach their potential, and in my book, all means all. Every child, regardless of income, race, background, or disability can learn and must learn."

Reading Out of the "Idiot Box": Same Language Subtitling on Television in India

Public Law 85-905

Original text of Public Law 85-905, the public law that originally established Captioned Films for the Deaf. Also known as the Captioned Films Act of 1958.

Lesson Guide for Captioned Films: A Training and Utilization Guide

The forward to the first bound volume (1968) of educational Captioned Films for the Deaf lesson guides and a sample guide for the educational film The Adventures of Willie Skunk. Explains that lesson guides are prepared for "…teachers of the deaf for use in conjunction with captioned films and is intended to help avoid pitfalls inherent in the use of films as teaching tools." Each guide contained these sections or components: film summary, purpose of film, preparation for film (teacher and student), follow-up, and additional resource materials.