While Harry Hagopian and Judy Vardamis are the principals in The Caption Group, Inc., they give generous credit to some of the people they say have inspired them in the two-year quest to bring local closed-caption television to eastern, central, coastal and parts of northern Maine.
For Vardamis, it was her step-daughter, Julie, who has been deaf since birth and is a graduate of the National Technical Institute in Rochester, N.Y.
Also at the top of the list are two men who have been deaf all of their lives, James Brown Jr. of East Millinocket, and Curtis Gibbert of Embden.
They came to Hagopian’s attention through a letter to the editor written by Brown on behalf of Gibbert.
Gibbert could not decipher flood warnings from his uncaptioned local newcast, and as a result, lost his home after being being stranded throughout the night perched on its roof during the flood of 1987. Gibbert’s ordeal and subsequent struggle to replace his home served as a focus for those around the state beginning to be aware of the need for local close-captioned news and interpreting services for the deaf.
Like many who are deaf and hearing impaired, Gibbert depended on television captioning for a great deal of information. However, most captioning is provided by network programs, and many of those are during prime time only.
“I was pleased to know that WVII is interested in something the deaf need so bad. I can’t live without it (captioning), because it keeps me informed on what I need to know about what’s going on in the world, like this war in Iraq. I watch all the (network) news in closed captioning and the prime-time (captioned) programs. I own three closed-caption decoders. “It is our right to know what is going on in the world. We are taxpayers so we have a right to know what is going on,” said James Brown through a telecommunications device for the deaf (TDD).
Other deaf people in the greater Bangor area agree that local closed- caption news will make a big difference in their lives. “There are many deaf people that will love to have the news closed captioned. It is really so great to have that, so I will know what they are talking about and I won’t have to depend on my husband to tell me,” said Betty Pomeroy, president of the Eastern Maine Association for the Hearing Impaired.
Pomeroy, Brown and Gibbert are just a few of the estimated 70,000 to 120,000 Mainers who have some form of hearing impairment. Included in the figure are adults who have experienced hearing loss from occupational exposure to loud noises, accidents or aging.
Hearing loss is measured in decibels, abbreviated dB. A hearing loss of 25 dB is considered mild, the equivalent of being unable to hear whisper or other soft sound. Normal conversational speech is 50-60 dB; by comparison, some home appliances, such as blenders and vacuum cleaners are about 90 dB. At a loss of 90 dB, a person is considered profoundly deaf.
Only a fraction — about 10 percent — of the total hearing-impaired population is actually deaf. Among them, are those who lost most of their hearing before age three, so they have little memory of sound.
They are the Deaf — with a capital “D.”
For them, being deaf is more than not being able to hear: it is a different culture.
Although the deaf must live and work in the hearing world, they cannot fully share in it.
“Basically, in the deaf world or culture, the main means of communication is by sign language. Other differences include a sense of family or bonding together,” said Karen Kelly, a deaf student teacher of elementary-aged children who are both hearing, hearing-impaired and deaf. Kelly spoke through a TDD linked to the AT&T dual-party relay system.
— By Jennie Borodko Stack
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