Deaf people and those hard of hearing can't rely on calling 911 when they have an emergency. Marlee Matlin appeared at the Intrado booth during CTIA to advocate text to 911.
Intrado was a finalist in the CTIA Emerging Technology Awards. The nation’s Tier 1 carriers have committed to fully implementing text-to-9-1-1 services but have not implemented a system, yet.
Intrado offers TXT29-1-1 to provide 9-1-1 text-messaging capabilities. Standard text messaging is used to directly notify authorities of emergencies.
Of Americans polled on this subject, 52 percent said they would text 9-1-1 if they had an emergency. Besides those without the ability to hear, there are also emergency situations where a person may not be able to talk to a dispatcher, where this service will also be helpful.
The Intrado TXT29-1-1 service uses enhanced short message service (SMS) infrastructure to establish a text conversation directly between the caller and 9-1-1 call taker. This infrastructure virtually eliminates delayed, lost or out of sequence messages.
Matlin autographed hats and met with the public spreading good will toward CTIA conference attendees. She told us about her support for text to 911 which we captured in the video below.
According to the FCC website text to 911 is generally not available today. It will become increasingly available during 2013. Until the deployment of text to 911, the FCC advises all people of any ability to call 911 in cases of emergency. The FCC video appears after Marlee Matlin.
. @wirelessmobile may I correct your article? The correct spelling is Intrado and hard of hearing is preferred to hearing impaired. Thanks
— Marlee Matlin (@MarleeMatlin) May 24, 2013
@marleematlin Sorry about the mis-wording.We changed it per your and others requests.
— Wireless Mobile News (@WirelessMobile) May 26, 2013
Please be advised that the term, “hearing impaired” is unacceptable. Here is the explanation:
The term "Hearing Impaired" is a technically accurate term much preferred by hearing people, largely because they view it as politically correct. In the mainstream society, to boldly state one's disability (e.g., deaf, blind, etc.) is somewhat rude and impolite. To their way of thinking, it is far better to soften the harsh reality by using the word "impaired" along with "visual", "hearing", and so on. “Hearing-impaired” is a well-meaning word that is much-resented by deaf and hard of hearing people. This term was popular in the 70s and 80s, however, now is used mostly by doctors, audiologists and other people who are mainly interested in our ears "not working."
While it's true that their hearing is not perfect, that doesn't make them impaired as people. Most would prefer to be called Deaf, Hard of Hearing or deaf when the need arises to refer to their hearing status, but not as a primary way to identify them as people (where their hearing status is not significant).
We are deaf, and not people with impairments (obstacles) in life!
Hope that you and your people respect by refusing to use the outdated and offensive term. Hearing loss is more acceptable for everyone who is not just deaf.
http://www.eastersealscrossroads.org/blog/2011/september/deaf-vs-hearing-impaired
http://www.deafau.org.au/info/terminology.php
http://nad.org/issues/american-sign-language/community-and-culture-faq
http://www.ifhoh.org/papers/agreement-terminology/
Thank you. We apologize and respect your opinion. We did not mean to be inappropriate. I have changed all the wording.
We support people with all unique sensibilities who use adpative technology including people who are blind and or without full vision.