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