How would you go if everyday everywhere you went you had to ask for Audio. That’s what it is like for Deaf and Hard of Hearing people having to ask for Auslan or Closed Captions.
In this video I talk about the importance of investing (consistently) in communication to ensure everyone is part of the conversation.Transcription and Visuals described below.
Visual description:
The video includes Katie sitting on a high stool chair by herself, in a navy dress. It is being filmed in a film studio and throughout the video Katie is talking and facing the camera as she shares insights on the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community.At times there is soft gentle music in the background. There are no other sound effects. The video starts with Katie talking to camera, then shares two photos of her as a young child with her siblings, the next shot is Katie walking along a beach and you can see her hearing aids.
As Katie talks about the cues Deaf and Hard of hearing people pick up, there are images of people in an office, a close up of a lady with camera focused on her lips as if we are lip reading. There is also footage of the Deaflympics and Australian team walking out at Olympic Park in Melbourne in 2005, and also Katie signing in a pink shirt at the Australian Deaf Games.
When Katie talks about being part of your tribe there are images of her famly and friends celebrating Rio Paralympics, and her training as a para triathlete.The video ends with an image that includes Katie talking to camera and then the final image includes the text Katie Kelly OAM PLY, Disability and Inclusion Advocate and 2 x Paralympian, with the website www.katiekelly.com.au The image includes at Katie Kelly logo which has the letters KK, and it is on a navy background with white font.
Transcription:
Imagine every day, everywhere you went, you had to ask for audio. That's what it's like for a deaf or hard of hearing person having to ask for closed captions or an interpreter every day, everywhere.
As someone who's born Deaf, hard of hearing and has been wearing hearing aids from a young age. I never really thought about hearing fatigue. It's something really interesting to think about.
Someone said to me, it's like every day you're trying to interpret or understand in another language and you're trying to understand what the conversation is. And that's where deafand hard of hearing people very good at picking up people's facial expressions and almost sensing a conversation without actually hearing the words. One thing that I would encourage you to do is always think about everybody in your community and are they included.
And in the example of someone who might be deaf or hard of hearing language is a real barrier and communication is so important we can take for granted the communication and access to language that we have. But for some of us we don't have access to language because we don't always choose to provide, for example, Auslan interpreter, or we don't always choose to have closed captions on.
That's why it's really important to think about everyone in our community and how we can ensure that we are providing the access, the technology, the communication to ensure everyone is included.And language is such an important part of that.
I'm so grateful that I've had the experiences I have had it been part of the deaf and hard of hearing community. It is such a rich culture in the sense of it has its own language and the sign language is so beautiful to watch in motion.
I've been very fortunate to be involved in the Deaf Olympics in Melbourne. I'll never forget walking on to the field as a media officer surrounded by 400 other deaf and hard of hearing athletes from all over Australia, all signing. And it just reminded me the it's important that we have inclusion, but it's also important that we have a way to connect with our own tribe.
And I could see that with the with the athletes and all of us volunteers, because we all know that feeling when you with your own tribe, you feel like you belong, you do belong and you feel connected.
And also importantly, that you're understood.
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