Technology talks for deaf-blind

Unless your primary means of human interaction is to trace letters in another person’s palm – as Betty Palmer, of Spokane, has done for a half-century – you may not fully appreciate a new device that allows people who are both deaf and blind to communicate with anyone, anywhere, anytime.

The DeafBlind Communicator, which is smaller than a laptop, was developed by Canadian manufacturer HumanWare, in cooperation with the Washington Office of Deaf and Hard of Hearing.

“Input from deaf-blind users who tested prototypes of the product had a direct impact at every stage of development,” said Eric Raff, director of the Office of Deaf and Hard of Hearing, part of the Department of Social and Health Services.

The office has obtained about 35 of the $8,000 communicators for $6,000 each, paying less because it helped develop the technology.

The DeafBlind Communicator program is funded through the excise tax Washington residents pay for land-line phones.

The Seattle office of the Helen Keller National Center estimates 150 to 200 deaf and blind people live in the state. Palmer, 82, who reads Braille, is one of four Spokane residents who will receive training to use the device, which she will get free of charge. Upon touching the device for the first time Thursday, she said through her caregiver that she wasn’t sure she could master the technology, but she was willing to try.

Born deaf, Palmer began to lose her vision after she was in a car crash at 32.

“At this point, I can see nothing,” she said during a demonstration of the communicator at the Spokane office of Deaf and Hard of Hearing.

There to help her learn how to use the device was Pat Cave, who was part of the focus group that helped engineers develop the technology. Cave, 61, was born deaf and began to lose his vision at 35 as a result of retinitis pigmentosa, a condition that has progressively narrowed his field of vision.

“Deaf-blind individuals have been waiting a long time for this equipment to come out,” Cave said through an American Sign Language interpreter. “The old equipment was not a good option.” The 25-year-old Tele-Braille technology used for teletype text telephones is heavy, cumbersome and subject to breakdown.

The DeafBlind Communicator is equipped with a land-line connector, TTY – or teletypewriter – software and an answering machine for telephonic use. It can translate typed text into e-mail or spoken word, and send text messages.

Colleen Rozmaryn, program manager for the Office of Deaf and Hard of Hearing, said that everywhere she’s seen deaf-blind people use the communicator for the first time, smiles have filled the room.

“All too often people who are deaf-blind are simply ignored and isolated by the greater public because of a perceived inability to communicate,” she said. “Everyone loses out when one group is isolated from the community at large.”