Check out this awesome new paralympics commercial! And when you do, ask yourselves… if “disabled” people had always been represented in this manner, would deaf people still face the social difficulties (employment, education, etc) that they do today?

Over the weekend, Adam Jarashow and Megan Malzkuhn launched a social media movement for online accessibility known as #captionTHIS. Their goal is to rally people to take action on June 6. Watch the video for more information about the cause. The video is captioned. (Go universal access!) Here is a template letter for your use. Feel free to add your own thoughts but please remember to be courteous and respectful when [...]

  Deaf Echo is joining #captionTHIS in its bold, amazing effort to get more internet news providers to caption online video content! Watch the video below to learn more about what is happening. Deaf Echo’s share of the fight will be to take the issue to the Washington Post! If you wish to join our efforts to do this, stay tuned! Otherwise, consider forming your own group and confronting your -possibly- favorite [...]

This is the first in a series of articles about technology, culture, and the Deaf.  If you have any good tips about new technology that is beneficial to Deaf and Hard of Hearing people, please let me know. Word Lens is a iPhone application that does one thing, and one thing well — it is an augmented reality application that uses the built-in iPhone camera to translate languages on the fly. [...]

Let me get this out in the open:  I am not much of a “phone person.”  I never really developed the habit, as I could not really use the phone well, beyond a small circle of familiar persons.  When I was thirteen, I was introduced to the TTY, and this was a minor miracle, as I could understand what the other person was saying to me through the text (notwithstanding [...]

  I used to feel sorry for children who had cochlear implants. I did. When I saw them it broke my heart because I really believed that their parents just didn’t understand deafness. I judged those parents. I assumed that the parents were looking for a quick fix to something that in my opinion didn’t require fixing. I said things like, “I would never do THAT to my child.” Aaron [...]

In addition to being a first-grade teacher, I’m also the geekminister for 15 brand-new iPad 2s at P.S. 347 The ASL and English Lower School in Manhattan. This is the first in what I hope will be a regular series on how my students and I are using the iPad to learn, read, create, and watch. Last spring, as soon as my principal and I discussed the possibility of having [...]

When we first confirmed my son was deaf, I had several communication choices presented to me by his Early Intervention coordinator.  I had never heard of cued speech, and at first I was ready to dismiss it solely because it was not the dominant form of communication among Deaf people.  But when an advocate of cued speech explained to me what websites couldn’t, I was convinced, and we proceeded with [...]

  Just as I’m flying to California State University Northridge to present at their Deaf College Student Leadership Conference, I was reading a copy of Newsweek. There was a story on the infectious appeal of the #Occupy Wall Street movement. One particular quote stood out to me: “In 2008 vast new numbers of Americans transformed the political process through social media and small-donor fundraising, electing a rank outsider, Obama, who [...]

It has been about a week now since the video of Sarah Churman was posted on YouTube. You know what happened next… it went viral, major news networks picked up on the story and reposted the video on their websites, and since then there has even been a television interview or two. Sarah Churman, if you’re reading this, let me start out with a disclaimer. What I’m about to write [...]