Turn on the Words! by Harry G. Lang

Author:Harry G. Lang [Lang, Harry G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781944838928
Google: iZ9vzgEACAAJ
Publisher: Gallaudet University Press
Published: 2021-01-15T02:48:15+00:00

Ernest E. Hairston meets Nancy Reagan at a Recordings for the Blind Awards Ceremony. Image courtesy of Ernest E. Hairston.

This was a time when the winds of change were blowing. One catalyst for that change was the ADA, with its emphasis on the broad term disabilities and on full and equal opportunity for all citizens. Until 1990, deafness was the only disability addressed by the captioned films program. Also significant were the 1990 Amendments (PL 101-476) and the renaming of the 1975 Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EHA) legislation as IDEA. These changes focused on individuals with special needs and their preparation for the world of work and college, and affected the whole of the MSCF branch of the Department of Education. Among the provisions were added authorized training in instructional and assistive technology services aimed at dramatically increasing the number of technology projects. In serving a larger audience, captioning, in particular, gained ground in becoming a universal technology. Within a few years, the technology would be regulated by both the Television Decoder Circuitry Act of 1990 and the Telecommunication Act of 1996 and enforced by the US FCC.3

Both former and current CFV leaders were paying close attention to the potential impact of the new laws. IDEA improved on the EHA, providing a “free appropriate public education which emphasizes special education and related services designed to meet their unique needs,” amended by PL 99-457 (EHA Amendments of 1986). Mac Norwood indicated two years before IDEA was passed that the “name of the game today is educational services” and that the role in the government’s MSCF branch included research in technology related to “handicapped” children. Norwood viewed as a top priority the utilization of television as a means of bringing deaf people further into the mainstream of the general population.

Len Novick caught an important omission in the 1990 amendments: “I was astonished to discover that the underlying language supporting captioning contained reference to ‘film’ only, with no mention of captioned television, which by that time had existed as a service for almost a decade.” As Novick worked with congressional staffers, what became PL 101-476 was edited to firmly establish authorization for federal support of captioned television.

—Len Novick, “Captioned Films for the Deaf: My Perspective,”

Described and Captioned Media Program, https://dcmp.org/learn/375-captioned-films-for-the-deaf-my-perspective

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