Glossary

CART Services - (Communication Access Realtime Translation). CART is most commonly seen in the classroom or business meeting when a deaf/hh person receives the written text of what is spoken through either a stenographer or a voice writer to a laptop computer.

Culturally Deaf - (or prelingually Deaf) people in America have sign language (usually ASL) as their first language. English came later. They will be much more comfortable with an interpreter, and their comprehension level will be higher. For someone accustomed to ASL, English is quite limited in its expression, and written English is very "dry." Additionally, a Deaf person who has spent most of their life communicating in ASL may not have developed the reading speed necessary to follow captions in realtime.

Dragon Naturally Speaking – Voice Recognition software “Dragon Naturally Speaking 8 Professional” is the version I’m referring to. We chose it because it has a reputation for being more accurate than its competition, IBM’s Via Voice. Via Voice is faster, but not as intelligent. I understand that Dragon looks at the context of the sentence to choose the proper word in the case of homophones. For example: "bear" and "bare" or “two” and “too.” This improves overall accuracy.

Homophone - words that are pronounced/sound alike but have different meanings. Homophones sometimes are spelled differently (example: too, two, to).

Prelingually deaf (see culturally deaf)

Postlingually deaf (or late-deafened adults) - individuals who learned a spoken language such as English before they learned to sign, some do not learn to sign at all. For these people, captions will provide a far greater comprehension level. Of the deaf and hard of hearing population in the United States, roughly 10% actually know sign language. Captions benefit the rest.

Shadow Speaker (Also called Verbatim Repetition) - Most commonly used when there are multiple speakers on stage. The computer is trained to recognize one Voice Writer's voice then that person speaks on behalf of all other speakers, copying or shadowing everything that is said into a microphone for the purpose of changing the spoken word into readable text or captions.

Stenomask (see Sylencer)

Sylencer - The Sylencer or Stenomask is a patented, hand-held device used to silence the user's voice. Inside is a special microphone allowing the speaker to transmit, record or communicate without being overheard by others. In essence, the Sylencer / Stenomask functions like a portable sound booth allowing quiet and private communication. It may be purchased at http://www.notetaker.net .

Voice Recognition Software - the conversion of spoken words into computer text. Speech is first digitized and then matched against a dictionary of coded waveforms. The matches are then converted into text as if the words were typed on the keyboard.

Voice Writer – Name for the person using Voice Recognition Software for the purpose of converting spoken speech to written form.