Important Survey on New Telephone Assistance Service for People with Speech Disabilities
From Bob Segalman drsts@comcast.net
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is encouraging me to gather information on a new telephone assistance service especially designed to help people with speech disabilities who use the telephone either with AAC or their own voice. The service is free except for the usual long-distance charges.
It is called Video-Assisted Speech-to-Speech (VAS). It will allow you to go to a website and signal a Communication Assistant (CA) that you want to make a phone call. Your computer will need a microphone and a video camera. You and the CA will see and/or hear each other; s/he will watch you type on your device or be able to use visual cues from your lips, facial expressions, etc. and will wait patiently so that you will have plenty of time to type or speak. The CA will ensure that the other party waits and stays on the line until you give the “go ahead” for them to respond. The advantage of VAS over traditional Speech to Speech relay (STS) is the visual input that you and the CA receive from each other.
Would you please answer the following survey to help the FCC determine how VAS can be best designed to best benefit the speech disability community?
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=t3HGpOp64VgVtqxeGqArQg_3d_3d
- Thanks to Cheryl Heppner, NVRC
Findings could lead to improved lip-reading training for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
A new study by the University of East Anglia (UEA) suggests computers are now better at lip-reading than humans.
The peer-reviewed findings will be presented for the first time at the eighth International Conference on Auditory-Visual Speech Processing (AVSP) 2009, held at the University of East Anglia from September 10-13.
A research team from the School of Computing Sciences at UEA compared the performance of a machine-based lip-reading system with that of 19 human lip-readers. They found that the automated system significantly outperformed the human lip-readers — scoring a recognition rate of 80 per cent, compared with only 32 per cent for human viewers on the same task.
Furthermore, they found that machines are able to exploit very simplistic features that represent only the shape of the face, whereas human lip-readers require full video of people speaking.
The study also showed that rather than the traditional approach to lip-reading training, in which viewers are taught to spot key lip-shapes from static (often drawn) images, the dynamics and the full appearance of speech gestures are very important.
Using a new video-based training system, viewers with very limited training significantly improved their ability to lip-read monosyllabic words, which in itself is a very difficult task. It is hoped this research might lead to novel methods of lip-reading training for the deaf and hard of hearing.
“This pilot study is the first time an automated lip-reading system has been benchmarked against human lip-readers and the results are perhaps surprising,” said the study’s lead author Sarah Hilder.
“With just four hours of training it helped them improve their lip-reading skills markedly. We hope this research will represent a real technological advance for the deaf community.”
Agnes Hoctor, campaigns manager at the RNID, said: “This research confirms how difficult the vital skill of lip-reading is to learn and why RNID is campaigning for people who are deaf or hard of hearing to have improved access to classes. We would welcome the development of video-based or online training resources to supplement the teaching of lip-reading. Hearing loss affects 55 per cent of people over 60 so, with the ageing population, demand to learn lip-reading is only going to increase.”
The AVSP conference is being held in the UK for the first time since its inception in 1998. The University of East Anglia will host cutting edge researchers including psychologists, engineers, scientists and linguists from as far afield as Australia, Canada and Japan.
As part of the conference, delegates will take part in a Visual Speech Synthesis Challenge in which a number of visual speech synthesizers, or ‘talking heads’, will battle it out to determine the most intelligible and visually appealing system.
AVSP runs as a satellite conference to Interspeech 2009 which will be held in Brighton. Topics under discussion will include: machine recognition of audiovisual speech; the role of gestures accompanying speech; modeling, synthesis and recognition of facial gestures; and speech synthesis.
Keynote speakers will be Dr Peter Bull of the University of York who will be exploring The Myth of Body Language and Prof Louis Goldstein of the University of Southern California whose presentation is entitled Articulatory Phonology and Audio-Visual Speech.
Comparison of human and machine-based lip-reading by Sarah Hilder, Richard Harvey and Barry-John Theobald is published in the Proceedings of the International Conference on Auditory-Visual Speech Processing (AVSP) 2009 on Thursday September 10 2009.
The research will be presented on Saturday September 12 at the International Conference on Auditory-Visual Speech Processing (AVSP) 2009 at the University of East Anglia.
For more information about the conference, please visit www.avsp2009.co.uk.
Part of the lip-reading test used to compare the performance of the machine-based lip-reading system and human lip-readers can be downloaded here: http://www.jtuk.com/training/part1.html
- Thanks to Science Blog
More state government workers facing layoffs
By Jim Nolan
Published: September 17, 2009
Job cuts included in the budget reductions that Gov. Timothy M. Kaine proposed last week don’t stop with the layoffs of 593 full-time workers.
About 200 temporary and hourly wage employees who work for the state also will lose their jobs, according to budget documents and administration officials.
They are office workers, data clerks, landscapers, bus drivers, janitors and teaching assistants who supplement the state’s full-time work force.
The wage-worker reductions, slated to save $2.3 million, do not include anticipated layoffs of temporary employees and wage workers in higher education. Kaine has handed over the budget ax to Virginia’s public colleges and universities to cut more than $100 million statewide.
Under the current budget plan, the Virginia State Police is the agency absorbing the brunt of part-time layoffs. It is slated to lose 104 part-time positions of non-sworn workers to save $1.2 million.
“I don’t recall a time in our history that has required layoffs or furloughs in order to meet our budgetary obligations,” State Police Col. W. Steven Flaherty wrote in a memo to his staff outlining cuts to his budget, a copy of which was obtained by the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Flaherty wrote that the loss of 104 workers would force the department to “delay and eliminate certain noncritical services.”
In Staunton, the Virginia School for the Deaf and the Blind will lay off bus drivers, interpreters, teaching assistants, security officers and housekeeping staff members to save about $475,000.
Also in Staunton, the Frontier Culture Museum of Virginia will make $150,000 in cuts that include reductions of hourly wage employees who help maintain the grounds and staff special events.
In Richmond, the Library of Virginia will absorb temporary and full-time worker cuts included in $123,000 in savings.
Other departments losing hourly wage employees include the Department of Conservation and Recreation, the Department of Emergency Management, and the Department of Forestry.
The state has about 10,500 temporary and hourly wage employees, in addition to about 5,800 part-time teaching faculty positions at state colleges and universities.
Officials said a specific agency breakdown on the number of hourly wage workers expected to lose their jobs was not available immediately for all departments. The figures vary depending on the pay for each job eliminated and the amount of spending a department was required to cut.
Secretary of Finance Richard D. Brown said the “vast majority” of the cuts to temporary staff in state agencies were included in budget-reduction plans that the agencies submitted at the request of the governor.
“The governor’s starting points were their plans,” said Brown, who this morning is to brief the Senate Finance Committee on the governor’s latest spending reductions.
Citing a steep drop in state revenue, Kaine this summer asked state agencies to submit plans with 5, 10, and 15 percent cuts. Last week, the governor announced a sweeping series of spending reductions to the fiscal 2010 budget to make up for an anticipated $1.35 billion shortfall in revenue.
Included among the cuts was the closure of three correctional facilities; deferral of a quarterly payment to the Virginia Retirement System; and the elimination of 929 full-time jobs on the state payroll-including 593 layoffs of state workers. The personnel cuts were expected to save about $170 million.
- Thanks to Richmond Time Dispatch and MN
$1 Million in Prize Money Caught Between Charity and Bankruptcy Court
Winner of ‘Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?’ Intended Winnings for State Schools
By STEVE OSUNSAMI and SADIE BASS
Sept. 9, 2009
It was the million-dollar question on the show “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?” and Kathy Cox, Georgia’s top educator as the state superintendent, was competing on behalf of her favorite charity. Her answer was correct — Queen Victoria was indeed the longest reigning British monarch. Cox won the prize and promised to donate it to three Georgia schools for the deaf and blind.
Share Debt collectors say money donated to schools by Kathy Cox is owed to them.
Cox says there was never any confusion about what her million-dollar prize money was intended for. She even named the schools while taping the episode.
“If anybody watched the show, it’s very clear that I was there because I’m the state superintendent of schools,” she said. “I talked about those schools and playing for those kids several times during the show.”
But since the show aired a year ago, the construction business of Cox’s husband went under. The couple filed for bankruptcy, and as a result, their creditors are suing for the million-dollar winnings that were meant to go to charity.
Cox says that’s just not fair.
“Was it a miracle that this happened? That I went on a game show and won a million dollars? Absolutely. But as I said to my husband, it’s not our miracle,” she said.
Lawyers for her husband’s creditors say they are owed more than $3 million, and that the money she won is fair game.
“I feel that it is outrageous, quite frankly, when we had taxpayer dollars come and bail out all banks,” Cox said. “Here I am trying to take $1 million and put it to the use of education of our students with disabilities, and they want to get their hands on that.”
The documents in the case aren’t clear. The prize money was originally supposed to be sent to her home address instead of directly to the schools. Cox had set up a trust for the funds. If Cox actually took custody of the money, legally the creditors could be entitled to it. But in documents Cox signed before appearing on the program, the episode on which Cox competed was clearly characterized as a “charity episode,” or “charity event.”
“I understand that money is just money, but it could make a big difference for these deaf, hard of hearing and blind children,” said Amy Cohen Efron, a member of the Georgia Association for the Deaf. “If that money arrives at the schools, it could make a big difference in the lives of these children.”
Parents and Students Protest
Cox says she chose to compete for the three Georgia schools for another important reason: several years ago, the state superintendant who preceded her was jailed for stealing more than half a million dollars from these same schools for the deaf and blind.
Parents and friends of the students are protesting. At one of the schools where the money was headed, the athletes don’t have uniforms, and students who can’t get into college need job training. The schools are funded by state dollars, so they aren’t able to collect local tax money.
“For some of these students, getting scholarships to college or incentives for job placements or even to be involved in basketball games or track or cheerleading would literally change their lives,” said Kenney Moore, school director of Atlanta Area School for the Deaf.
Brittney Brown, a senior and president of the student council at one of the schools said, “I know that she won that money in order to give it to the deaf students, and here we are waiting.”
Waiting, any day now, for the bankruptcy judge to decide just who won the money — the students or the bill collectors.
Source:
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/dispute-smarter-5th-grader-winnings/Story?id=8530225&page=1
- Thanks to ABC News and CR
Gallaudet Welcomes Race Drake, Sr., ‘38 to the 75th anniversary of Homecoming
Sep 4, 2009
Press release – Gallaudet Sports Information 9/4/09
NVRC NOTE: Leadership runs in the family. Mr. Drake’s son, Race Drake, Jr. of Staunton, VA is a member of Skyline Chapter of Virginia Association of the Deaf. He was named Deaf Father of the Year in 2009 and received the NAD Golden Hands Award in 1999.
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Gallaudet University is busy preparing for this year’s 75th anniversary of Homecoming that will be held from October 23-25 at Kendall Green. The normal fanfare from class reunions to Bison athletic events will take place but there will be a special moment during the Saturday football game. GU will welcome back Race Drake, Sr., ‘38 the last living member of the 1934 Bison football team that defeated Shenandoah, 7-6, on November 24 in the first-ever Gallaudet Homecoming.
“I remember about the Gallaudet Homecoming in 1934. We played against Shenandoah and we won. It was a very exciting game. I was surprised to learn, later, that was the first-ever Homecoming at GU,” said Drake. “After the game, alumni and students marched around campus with class flags to celebrate Homecoming.”
Arkansas native Drake started at GU in 1933 when he was in preparatory. The following year, the 1934 football team posted a 1-6-1 record under the guidance of Coach Frederick Hughes, ‘13. Drake eventually played football all five years at GU and was inducted into the GU Athletic Hall of Fame.
Drake, who currently lives in St. Augustine, Fla., will be recognized at this year’s diamond anniversary Homecoming as he will serve as an honorary captain for the GU football team. He will also flip the coin at the start of the game as the Bison host Becker College at 1 p.m. at Hotchkiss Field. The Homecoming will have a special meaning for his daughter, Donna Drake, ‘69 and his niece, Bette Hicks, ‘69 as they will be attending their class’ 40th anniversary reunion.
Four of the Bison’s six fall varsity teams will be in action on Homecoming weekend. The men’s soccer team starts things off with a Friday evening contest against Capital Athletic Conference foe Hood College at 7:30 p.m. under the lights at Hotchkiss Field. On Saturday, the Bison volleyball team hosts Lebanon Valley College at 11 a.m. and turn around to host University of Scranton at 3 p.m. in the field house. GU’s women’s soccer team closes out the busy day with a night match against Lincoln University at 5:30 p.m. at Hotchkiss Field.
The Homecoming weekend comes to a grand close on Sunday, October 25, with the Gallaudet University Athletic Hall of Fame Induction with Drake in attendance. A fitting end to a busy Homecoming weekend for a GU Hall of Famer, who was there at the start of it.
The GU Hall of Fame Class of 2009 includes Charles L. Hammack, Robert Jackson, Richard A. Jacobs, Touria Ouahid Boren, Michelle Poole, Vincent Todd Silvestri and Shannon D. Simon. A brunch will be held in their honor on Sunday morning at 10 a.m. in the Kellogg Conference Hotel on the campus of Gallaudet University. For more information about this year’s Hall of Fame event please contact Anna Hall in the GU Athletics Department at anna.hall@gallaudet.edu.
Gallaudet University Homecoming Athletic Events
Friday, October 23
Men’s Soccer vs. Hood, 7:30 p.m. (Hotchkiss Field)
Saturday, October 24
Volleyball vs. Lebanon Valley, 11 a.m. (Field House)
Football vs. Becker, 1 p.m. (Hotchkiss Field)
Volleyball vs. Scranton, 3 p.m. (Field House)
Women’s Soccer vs. Lincoln, 5:30 p.m. (Hotchkiss Field)
Sunday, October 25
Hall of Fame Induction, 10 a.m. (Kellogg Conference Center)
Source: http://www.gallaudetathletics.com/news/2009-10/racedrake
- Thanks to Gallaudet Athletics.com and NVRC, Fairfax
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