Learning under duress

Monday, April 20, 1998

Learning under duress

DISABILITIES: Innovative techniques help disabled students stay
ahead of the curve

By Michelle Nguyen

Daily Bruin Contributor

Robert Rainey sits in animal physiology class, concentrating on
the computer screen in front of him. The computer is attached to a
steno machine, manned by a stenographer.

Contrary to his classmates’ belief, he is not a student working
for ASUCLA lecture notes. Rainey is deaf. Although he speaks and
reads lips, he uses the computer as a verbatim guide to read what
the professor is saying. This service is among one of the many that
UCLA provides for its students with disabilities.

"One or two times every quarter, there are students who do not
understand why I have captionist service. A lot of them think that
the captionist works for UCLA, like for the lecture notes," he
says.

Sally, his captionist, types whatever the professor is saying in
real time. She is able to type in real time because she types
phenomes, not words. The phenomes appear on the screen as words,
using a system of memory that is embedded in the caps. For example,
she may type the letter e with a caret for the word bed.

This appears on Rainey’s screen: "Things women hate for
Valentine’s Day: Power tools. Weight-loss club certificates.
Household appliances."

Needless to say, it is not part of th lecture on animal
physiology. Sometimes Sally can type faster than the professor
speaks, so she has time to engage in computer banter with him.

For the first two years, Rainey relied on notetakers from the
Office of Students with Disabilities (OSD) to learn. This soon
proved problematic to his academic success.

"I found that notes taken by others were limited in value. Most
of them would not take complete notes. My tests scores were
especially affected in classes where the instructor placed great
emphasis on the notes."

About two years ago, Real Time Captioning, a newly developed
technology, became available for students with disabilities at
UCLA.

"I had to find a way of compensating my inability to hear. So,
in my third year of college, I started to use real time captioning,
which employs a stenographer, who uses a steno machine to take down
the lectures correctly. That way, I can read every word the
professor is saying," he says.

But RTC did not solve his problems completely. He found that it
was difficult to read the computer screen while copying down what
the professors were writing on the board.

"Now, I go to the professor and explain to them my situation,"
says Rainey. "If the professor writes a lot on the board, I’ll ask
the professor if I can have copies of the notes. That way I do not
miss what appears on the screen."

The use of RTC boosted Rainey’s GPA by 0.5, an important raise
for a pre-med biochemistry major. As a student, Rainey thinks that
he has to work a lot harder than other students to achieve the same
goals.

"I have to dedicate most of my time to my subject; there are
several things that I may not get in my lectures if the professor
does not have lecture notes or study notes or where they are
disorganized. I can work just about the same as hearing people, but
that does not always happen." Rainey said there are times when the
professor does not have the notes or he misses out on what is typed
on the screen.

But grappling with UCLA’s day-to-day life is basically the same
for Rainey as anyone else. He sees the only difference as being his
use of RTC.

"Most of the difficulties would stem from lack of proper
services, rather than my disability. I do not have trouble going
through the day, dealing with hearing people outside of class. Most
of my trouble is from inside class. When I may not get the perfect
notes, I may miss out what they say, but I always find ways to get
around it. I always fix the problem after class."

To make phone calls on campus, Rainey can use the telephone
device for the deaf, which is available in Powell Library or Murphy
Hall. It consists of a keyboard that Rainey will use to type his
side of the conversation to the other party. A California Relay
operator will read Rainey’s message on her computer screen and
proceed to translate the message to the other party. Then the other
party will respond by dictating to the relay operator, who will
send the message to Rainey through the computer.

Rainey lost his hearing at 2 1/2 years old when he developed
H-flu meningitis. The illness damaged the crucial hair cells that
transmit sounds to the brain. The Cochlear implant that is partly
implanted in his head consists of two magnets and a wire. The
implant allows him to wear a hearing aid. Although he cannot
discriminate speech, the hearing aid amplifies environmental
sounds, connecting him to the world of car honks and talking.

"When I take my implant and hearing aid off I am lost. It
bothers me. I don’t like it," Rainey says. "Before I had the
implant I could not hear anything."

When Rainey was fourteen his single channel Cochlear implant
failed him. Consequently, he was implanted with a multi-channel
Cochlear implant which was developed as a consequence of some of
the research projects he had participated in.

As a personal beneficiary of medical research, Rainey realized
that he wanted to become a doctor.

"I want to help people in the same way my doctors helped me. I
would not be where I am if it were not for the doctors who did
research for the use of the Cochlear implant," he says.

Wanting to give back to the scientific community has kept him
doing research at the House Ear Institute for the past four
years.

In particular, Rainey wants to go to the UCLA medical school
because of their expertise in dealing with deaf students and the
accessibility of services for students with disabilities.

"A lot of the medical schools do not have real time captioning,"
he says.

The Office of Students with Disabilities provides the services
for the UCLA Medical School. In addition to real time captioning,
the OSD offers student notetakers and assistive learning
devices.

Two deaf students have graduated from the UCLA Medical School
since 1995. Deaf students can choose to have interpreters accompany
them to the small group sessions as well as to the history and
physical examinations involved in medical school.

"If the student spends ‘on call’ overnight, if the student is
there for 18 hours where they are doing a rotation at night, then
we have signers that are there with the students," says Dr. Neil
Parker, senior associate dean for student affairs of the UCLA
Medical School.

But the interpreter-student relationship is not a one-way street
in opportunity. Accompanying students to classes may spark
interests in new fields for interpreters. One medical school
interpreter is now a representative for a drug company as a result
of the medical education she gained from accompanying a deaf
student through school.

The medical school also has ways to enhance heart sounds so that
deaf or hard-of-hearing students can listen.

Sign language interpreters are often given notebooks to study up
on the particular terms that are used in highly specific
classes.

"We’ve provided interpreters for two medical students, a surgeon
and a dermatologist, five law students, a Ph.D in theoretical
particle physics, a masters in molecular biology and Ph.D’s in
anthropology and linguistics, so we have had very challenging areas
to provide interpreters for," says Dan Levitt, assistant director
of the OSD.

If students choose to use assistive listening devices, a
professor will be given a little microphone to wear. The student
can sit anywhere in the lecture hall with his earphone receiving
unit to hear the professor.

"The expectation is that all students will be able to graduate
with all the competencies as everybody else," Parker says.