SENATE MEMORIAL 15 43rd legislature - STATE OF NEW MEXICO - first session, 1997 INTRODUCED BY Shannon Robinson A MEMORIAL ENCOURAGING THE USE OF REAL-TIME CAPTIONING AS A MEANS TOWARD GREATER ACCESS FOR THE HARD OF HEARING. WHEREAS, in New Mexico alone there are over one hundred sixteen thousand persons categorized with the degree of hearing loss that makes them unable to hear or understand the spoken word, and nearly fifty thousand New Mexicans experience a moderate to profound degree of deafness; and WHEREAS, most employees, co-workers and people in general are unaware of how to communicate effectively with fellow human beings who are deaf or hard of hearing; and WHEREAS, the lack of access to hearing assistance experienced by the hearing impaired is appalling; and WHEREAS, in the past several years measures have been taken at the federal level to help alleviate the difficulty that the hearing impaired experience in their everyday lives; and WHEREAS, what is termed "closed-captioning" benefits individuals with hearing disabilities by displaying the audio portion of a television signal as printed words on the television screen; and WHEREAS, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 mandates that the federal communications commission require video providers to supply "closed-captioning" in programming by August 1997; and WHEREAS, captioning services provide a means of removing communication barriers as well as giving equal access to the hearing impaired; and WHEREAS, real-time captioning is a technology that enables simultaneous, word-for-word transcription of a speaker's words at conferences and committee meetings as well as in the classroom, translating the spoken word either to a laptop computer held by the user or to a monitor for viewing by many; and WHEREAS, real-time captioning technology requires the skills of a court reporter who has been trained to use specially developed software and stenographic keyboards and computers to create captions; and WHEREAS, without captioning those who are hearing impaired depend on communication avenues such as amplification, adaptive behavior, such as facing the listener and carefully enunciating, and the written word, the last of which is the most reliable; NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE SENATE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO that the problems faced by the hearing impaired regarding equal access to communication and services be addressed; and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the issue of finding an appropriate place in state law to make real-time captioning a form of interpreting at public meetings, conferences and in the classroom be studied; and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a copy of this memorial be transmitted to the chairman of the interim legislative health and human services committee.