Watching accessible cartoons. The speed of closed captions for young audiences in the United States

Closed captions facilitate access of the deaf and hard of hearing community to mass media communication. Contrary to other countries that edit and shorten the subtitles to adjust them to the average spectator’s reading speed, the United States favors verbatim captions. This means that longer subtitles are provided to receivers, who thus need to read them faster. This paper presents the main findings of a study that explores the speed at which closed captions are currently delivered in television programs aimed at young audiences in the US. Results show average captioning speeds to be aligned with those usually suitable for adult readers, and high percentages of fast subtitles, which could challenge the reading skills of the young, hearing-impaired addressees.