For Deaf and hard of hearing people across the nation, captioning has been a wonderful technology for accessing info and following events around the world, it has also been a wonderful technology for improving reading skills in both children and adults, and helps people who are learning English as a second language. The people who work everyday to make the captions and the descriptions are to be commended for the vital role they are playing in creating communication access. Title IV of the ADA also mandates nation wide telecommunication relay services. The MA Telephone Relay Service makes it possible for the telephone, like the tv, to become a part of the technology we use every day to access information. The Telephone Relay Service here in MA and across the nation makes it possible for us to talk with and connect people we would otherwise not reach.
Relay services remove huge communication barriers.
We can celebrate the new 711 number for calling relay services, which is easier to remember, and quick to use. When this ADA Torch runs across America, Deaf and Hard of Hearing and Disabled people who are carrying it are celebrating the progress we have all made towards full and equal communication access because of captioning and because of Telephone Relay Services. We are not however, at the end of our run. There is much running ahead of us. Still ahead of us is the need to have full access to the newest and fastest growing kind of communication- the internet.