UK Council on Deafness

Human Aids to Communication Conference

More than 80 people from throughout the UK attended the Human Aids to Communication Conference hosted by UK Council on Deafness in London on 25th April 2002. Many of the original 1992 Commission of Enquiry attended including the Chair of the Commission, Lady Mary Marre.

Delegates were given an update on progress over the last 10 years by Bob Peckford and Roz Chalmers of CACDP and Anne Worsfold from the Cued Speech Association. The 1992 report contained 82 recommendations covering 8 topics, some had been met and real progress had been made towards others but many needed further work.

An insight into the day to day problems faced by users of HACs was given by Ruth Myers who uses SSE and Helen Beaumont who is deafblind. Dawn Marshall, manager of the Newcastle Interpreting Agency explained the problems that she has in finding Interpreters with the appropriate skills in specialist settings.

After lunch, delegates caught a glimpse of the future with presentations on Instant Captioning from Teletec International; Access to the Arts using Subtitling from STAGETEXT and BSL/English Interpreters by Videophone from Mike Knight of the Leicestershire Centre for Deaf People.

In the final session David Brien spoke about his research into the Organisation and Provision of BSL/English Interpreters in England, Scotland and Wales carried out for the Department of Work & Pensions. Rosanna Preston gave details of the work that RNID are doing to train more interpreters and Martin Colville spoke about the newly formed Independent Registration Panel of which he is the first Chair.

The terms of reference for the 1992 Commission of Enquiry were to "Consider the full range of human aids to communication between all deaf and hearing people and make recommendations for the improvement in the quality and quantity for both the short and the longer term". Much more detailed work will need to be done now to provide a comprehensive update on the report, and the conference has provided much food for thought for the new Commission to consider. There will be a comprehensive consultation process shortly. Anyone wishing to submit evidence to the Commission can find out how to do so by contacting UK Council on Deafness.

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