Students who are deaf or hard of hearing and wish to have any type of support services must see an advisor in ACCESS Disability Services before registering for classes (bring a copy of your most recent audiogram if not already on file). Please see your advisor 10 days prior to the first day of class to arrange for services. Time is needed to schedule interpreters, captionists, and/or note taking services. Students should make an appointment with their ACCESS advisor by calling or visiting the office. Phone 711 or 1-800-955-8771 (Voice/TTY).
Miami-Dade Audiovisual Department has films that are closed captioned. They are listed under “Video recordings for the ‘hearing impaired’”. Recently made commercial videos will have “CC” or the letter “C” inside a TV icon indicating that they are captioned.
Assistive Listening Devices (ALDs) are hearing aid systems that consist of a tiny microphone that picks up sound waves from the air and converts them into electrical signals; an amplifier that increases the strength of the electrical signals; a battery that provides electrical energy to operate the hearing aid; and a tiny loudspeaker called a receiver that converts the amplified signals back into sound waves and directs them into the ear through a special ear-mold.
The signal itself is an FM (radio) signal that uses one of 40 different FM channels reserved by regulation of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission for this purpose. ALDs help some Deaf/hard of hearing students by: overcoming the difficulty of hearing in a classroom with poor acoustics, amplifying sound over a 200 feet perimeter, eliminating surrounding background noises, amplifying sound from several vantage points (with an additional environmental microphone), and enhancing the sound of AV equipment by plugging directly into the “output” jack.
All of the necessary equipment will be brought to each class by the student. It simply requires the teacher to clip a small lavaliere microphone (similar to the kind used by television newscasters) to his/her clothing. The transmitter (about the size of a large beeper) can be carried in a pocket or clipped to a belt.
C-Print is a computer-aided speech-to-print transcription system that was developed for deaf and hard of hearing students in post secondary settings. It is most commonly used as a note taking system.
LINK: Click here for a detailed description of C-Print
Notes are crucial to the success of a student in college but present problems for most Deaf and hard of hearing students who attempt to take their own notes while simultaneously trying to follow an interpreter or lip-read an instructor. The notetaker (usually an MDC student) is a paid employee of the college. They are assigned to take notes, “as if they were taking the course themselves.”
Every effort is made to hire notetakers who have already taken the courses for which they are taking notes. You can expect the note taker to: be on time, take complete and legible notes, meet with you after class if s/he misses any information or needs clarification, give you a copy of the notes (if you request them). Notetakers (usually MDC students) are paid employees of the college.
The notetaker is only authorized to copy and distribute his/her notes to the instructor or to another disabled student (should there happen to be more than one disabled student in your class). Should the deaf or hard of hearing student not appear in class without prior notification, the notetakers have been instructed to wait 20 minutes; then they are free to leave. As a model of the “real world”—no note taking will be done until the student arrives. If you have further questions regarding note taking, please feel free to contact our office.
Agencies that serve deaf or hard of hearing people:
Jewish
Community Services of South Florida
735 N.E. 125th Street
No. Miami, FL 33161
Job Placement, Deaf & Hard of Hearing Program
Rosie Moreno, Job Placement Specialist
305-899-1587 ext. 117 (VOICE)
305-899-1565 (FAX)
Vocational Rehabilitation
Services for Deaf people
305-643-7620 (VOICE)
305-643-7621 (TTY)
305-643-7634 (FAX)
D/SAIL
305-324-5481 (VOICE)
305-545-3574 (TTY)
305-547-7355 (FAX)
Deaf & Hard of Hearing Outpatient Mental Health Program
305-355-8059 (VOICE)
305-355-8066 (TTY)
305-355-8091 (FAX)
Deaf Services Bureau
Gables One Tower
1320 South Dixie Highway
Suite 760
Miami, FL 33146
305-668-4407 (VOICE)
305-668-3323 (TTY)
305-668-4669 (FAX)
E-mail: deafsvc@aol.com
Robert Morgan Vocational Technical Institute
Darlene Watson, Counselor or Nancy Solono, Teacher
305-253-9920 ext. 133 (VOICE)
Deaf bowling league
Don Carter’s Bowling Alley
Kendall Drive and 137th
Every Thursday
Dave and Buster’s
Every other Friday evening
Dolphin Mall, Miami
Other information:
www.pepnet.org - Information on Deaf/hard of hearing students
in Post-Secondary education settings
www.cfv.org - Captioned Media
Program
www.nad.org - National Association
for the Deaf
www.rid.org - National Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf www.rid.org
CLICK HERE for additional links...
All disabled students experience additional stress when
taking tests. MDC-Kendall offers test taking assistance through the
testing center in room 5213. The Deaf/Hard of hearing student registers
with the testing center.
LINK: STUDENTS: Click here for a detailed
description of the assistance is given
LINK: PROFESSORS: Learn how to work with
students who are deaf or hard of hearing
Deaf students who do not use sign language are not able to follow a classroom lecture through the use of lip-reading. The distance an instructor stands from the first row and the changing sight line from the student to an instructor’s mouth if they move at all (especially if they must turn to write on the board) make it impossible to use their lip-reading skills. In addition, is not possible to lip-read an unfamiliar word (lip-reading is not a replacement for hearing the words, as we do).
New vocabulary has to be practiced until the lip patterns are learned. Accents and moustaches impede effective lip-reading. And since there is no way for the Deaf student to see the mouths of the other students sitting behind them, there is no way that the Deaf student will know what questions/answers their classmates are providing to the discussions. To compensate (in a limited way) for what the Deaf students do not hear, the oral interpreter will mouth the words that everyone in the class is saying. The oral interpreter will be close enough, keep their head and mouth in one place in a direct sight line to the Deaf student.
Deaf students who do not use sign language will be able to speak. They may (or may not) have enough residual hearing in the frequency range to hear some human speech sounds. In a setting that has good acoustics (quiet with no echoes, for example) the Deaf student may be able to lip-read in a one-on-one situation (I.e. with you in your office). But whether the student can speak or not has no bearing on how much s/he can hear and to what extent s/he can hear.
The ACCESS Disability Services Office at Miami-Dade College-Kendall works hard to meet the individual needs of the Deaf
and hard of hearing students that we serve. We offer a variety of
support services to ensure equal access to your education. The following
information will help you to best use the services we provide and
be SUCCESSFUL.
LINK: Click here for full
outline of guidelines and procedures