GOOD HEALTH

19

Back to School Edition 2016

BlueRibbonNews.com

New app bridges communication gap

for deaf Rockwall resident 

Every day, the deaf and hard-of-hearing struggle to break 
the barrier denying them total access to a full social and 
professional life. But local massage therapist Jeanna’ 
Meade, who’s been deaf since she was four years old, 
overcame that obstacle when she discovered a newly-
developed mobile app called Ava.

Ava (audio visual accessibility) is a free mobile app that 
bridges the communication gap between the deaf and the 
hearing by captioning conversations in real time using 
a mobile device’s built-in microphone to pick up what’s 
being said. When two or more people are signed on to 
the app, they can engage in conversation by either talking 
directly into the mic or typing what they want to say, 
similar to texting or instant messaging.

Ava has opened many doors for Jeanna’ and greatly 
improved her everyday life, to the point where she can 
now better enjoy things like participating in conversations 
and attending her local church.

“For my birthday, my friend took me out to eat and I had 
Ava on,” Jeanna’ said. “The waiter was making small jokes 
with my friend and it was all coming up on the app and 
I caught what was being said. I was like, wow!”

Before Ava, Jeanna’ experienced all the common 
frustrations and difficulties in understanding conversation. 
She learned sign language and how to lip read, which has 
helped her in one-on-one conversations and in her duties as 
a massage therapist at Rockwall Body and Soul Massage. 
During a massage, if the client is face down on the table, 
she tells them to move their hand or tap their foot to let 
her know if they need something. The body, she said, 
will always tell her more than people can with words.

“As a deaf person, I’m more in tune with people’s body 
language,” Jeanna’ said. “I pay more attention to the things 
that hearing people often miss, like the rise and fall of 
someone’s chest. Your breathing pattern tells me if 
you’re relaxed or not.”

While certain techniques such as reading lips and body 
language can often aid a deaf person in one-on-one 
dialogue, group conversation presents a much greater 
challenge for the hearing-impaired, as most find it 
problematic to read the lips of more than one person 
at a time. But with Ava, Jeanna’ said she can finally sit 
with a group of friends or multiple clients at a time 
and pick up on a majority of what’s being said.

“Instead of getting only 50 percent of the conversation, 
I can catch more like 90 percent of it,” she said.

Another challenge for the deaf is one which is often 
overlooked: participating in a multi-person conversation 

in a dark setting. For instance, activities like sitting outside 
with friends around a campfire at night or having a pleasant 
conversation during an evening stroll with a significant 
other become a near impossibility for the hearing-impaired 
because the darkness hinders their ability to lip read.

“For the deaf, the dark is not our friend,” Jeanna’ said, 
“because if I can’t see you, I can’t hear you. So it makes 
me both blind and deaf. It’s something hearing people 
never think about.”

Jeanna’ said in times where her friends would sit outside 
at night and talk, she would often feel left out of the 
conversation because she had difficulty reading lips 
in the dark. But with Ava, Jeanna’ said, it’s like 
turning on a light switch.

“With Ava, I can stay outside, too!” she said. “I can 
be a part of everything that’s going on.”

An avid writer, Jeanna’ also blogs every day on 
Wordpress’s The Daily Post, where writers are given daily 
one-word prompts to write about. One of the more recent 
prompts was the word “overhear,” asking the writer to blog 
about the bits and pieces of conversation he/she overheard 
at a restaurant or similar setting. For the deaf or hard 
of hearing, the concept of overhearing is an impractical 
phenomenon, as they can only understand people who 
directly and intentionally speak to them.

Thanks to Ava, Jeanna’ said she can finally understand 
what it’s like to hear people around her who aren’t talking 
directly to her. She described a recent trip to Starbucks, 
where she was standing in line and her Ava app picked 
up the conversation of the people in front of her. She 
had experienced a concept many hearing people take 
for granted – unintentional eavesdropping. For the first 
time in her life she had actually experienced the feeling 
of overhearing a conversation.

The app isn’t without its faults, 
however, and occasionally will 
misinterpret audio picked up by 
the mic. Jeanna’ said the folks with 
Ava are currently working 
on making the app able to catch 
more voices and understand 
different speech patterns.

“Is the app perfect now? No. 

But it’s so much more than what I ever had. It gives me the 
opportunity to hear more and not feel left out,” she said.

Jeanna’ added that Ava can also benefit those who aren’t 
deaf or hearing-impaired.

“It’s not just for me, but for anybody who needs just a 
little bit of help hearing or understanding.”

For more information about Ava, visit ava.me/. 

Story and photo by Austin Wells, 
Blue Ribbon News editor.

ROCKWALL ART LEAGUE

October 14-16, 2016

Rockwall Rotary Club Building

408 S. Goliad St. • Rockwall, TX 75087

Fri. Oct. 14 • 12pm-7pm

Sat. Oct. 15 • 10am-7pm

Artist Reception • 5pm-7pm

Sun. Oct. 16 • 12pm-5pm

Open to the Public | No Admission Fee

www.rockwallartleague.org

Rockwall Art League is a 501c3 non-profit organization.

 16th 

Annual

FINE ART SHOW

AND SALE