Disabled students pay tuition fees too!

live captioning services

All students on the same course pay the same tuition fees, regardless of whether they are disabled or not. So it stands to reason that they should have the same learning experience, right? Wrong! Too often, students with hearing loss are left struggling during lectures, tutorials and practicals. They can end up quitting studying, or working twice as hard as their hearing peers just to keep up with their course.

Live captioning, carried out remotely, is a cost-effective and discreet way of providing the help deaf students need. 121 Captions can stream live captioning services to students’ laptops, tablets or smartphones word by word at up to 300 words a minute, ensuring deaf students hear their lectures at the same time as everyone else.

Benefits of live captioning services

Through Disabled Students Allowances (DSAs) funding live captioning in the UK comes at no additional cost to the student. And the benefits of live captioning are more far-reaching than simply receiving words on a screen; students report feeling more independent and relaxed during lectures, and less singled-out as needing extra attention.

Without 121 assisting me, I wouldn’t have been able to fully understand my lectures as I tend to miss out when I listen. I also can’t remember things when I hear it, which makes it even more difficult. I am therefore able to remember everything I read, thus 121 also provides the transcription of the lecture at the end of the day for me to read in my own time and to study from.

[Live captioning] is one of the best services I have encountered, not only for people with a hearing disability but for anyone who needs a transcription of a class, lecture, conference or even a board meeting“.  – Student A

Despite the benefits of live captioning we still hear of experiences which make us despair at the unequal education some disabled students receive:

  • Universities paying post-graduate students less than minimum wage to sit in lectures with deaf students and write or type the content frantically. Without specialist live captioning training it’s inevitable that information gets missed, misspelt or garbled.
  • Lecturers refusing to wear the microphones needed to pick up their lecture for live captioning.
  • Colleges paying for sub-standard live captioning, which appears incomplete with sentences missing, or as chunks.

We feel all students deserve equal access to education, regardless of whether they can hear or not. Live captioning from 121 Captions provides that.

We’d love to hear from students who have had good or bad experiences with their live captioning services.

Leave a comment or get in touch on bookings@121captions.com or +44 (0)20 8012 8170.


 

lisa

 

Lisa Caldwell works freelance as an accredited Phonak Roger Pen trainer with Credo Communications.

You can catch up with her at credocommunications@gmail.com

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  1. […] loss is having on their work or studies, and have asked for help from Access to Work  or their Disabled Student Allowance (DSA) assessor. And that’s where I come […]

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