Educational aspects of television subtitling in deaf education

The increasing availability of microcomputers and video technology in schools is opening the way towards local 'do-it-yourself' video subtitling facilities. Over the last five years, many teachers of deaf children have begun to recognise the educational benefits of subtitled television, but the means for effective, yet low-cost, subtitling did not exist. Building on our earlier experience with broadcast-teletext subtitling we initiated work, funded by the Mountbatten Memorial Trust, to fulfil this need. To gauge the extent of interest in local subtitling, and to gather design data for the project, a national survey of the uses of television and related media in the education of deaf children was undertaken. Existing methods of adapting educational broadcasts to provide access for deaf children were of particular interest in the survey. As a result of our work, a prototype low-cost subtitling system has been developed, based on video and computer equipment already widely available in schools. Technical details of the system are described in the companion paper. A programme of technical evaluation of the equipment in schools for the deaf and units for hearing impaired children attached to mainstream and special schools has just been concluded. A feature of this work has been the close collaboration with teachers of the deaf. As a result of these trials, a commercial system is being produced and guidelines for effective educational subtitling are starting to emerge.