East Japan Railway Co, or JR East, and others started Wednesday a trial at the railway operator’s Ueno Station in Tokyo of a system to convert station announcements and train sounds into words to assist deaf and hard-of-hearing people.
Glasses showing movie subtitles and texts describing scenes and sound effects on the lenses are helping the hard of hearing enjoy their time at the movies in Japan.
Legislation is expected to be passed in the current parliamentary session to support persons with disabilities to obtain the same information they need in their daily lives and during disasters as able-bodied persons, with the aim of eliminating disparities. Issues have been raised regarding the acquisition of information by persons with disabilities, such as the fact that subtitles and sign language interpreters are sometimes not provided for disaster news.
A system jointly developed by the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo and SoftBank Corp. converts sign-language gestures into written text.
Broadcast via NHK’s educational channel, the deaf interpreters, for whom sign language is their first language, were able to convey more detailed and nuanced coverage of the Olympic closing ceremony and Paralympic opening ceremony by communicating information provided to them by signers who can hear.
A 13-year-old junior high school girl with a hearing impairment in Kitakyushu City was mistakenly diagnosed with intellectual disability in her childhood without undergoing proper examination at the Municipal General Rehabilitation Center, and it took about seven and a half years until she was actually found to be deaf.
After a hearing-impaired person infected with the new corona virus was refused the use of accommodation facilities because it was difficult to communicate by telephone, Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare has issued a notice to local governments asking them to introduce remote sign language interpretation and written communication so that people with hearing disabilities infected with the new coronavirus can use facilities.
A deaf man, 33, living in Nagoya City, who was infected with the new coronavirus and requested hotel treatment, was rejected by Aichi Prefecture, saying it was difficult for him to communicate by telephone. The ‘All Japan Federation of the Deaf’ submitted a request for improvement to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, and the ministry will consider asking local governments not to exclude hearing-impaired people from hotel treatment.
The government has started to promote the use of “tsunami flags,” which are flags that visually notify people with hearing disabilities when tsunami warnings or advisories are issued at beaches.
As the new coronavirus spreads, a group of people concerned in Nagoya city, say “We have collected the real voices of people with hearing disabilities in the coronavirus disaster.” Wearing masks and other measures to prevent infection seem to be detrimental to the communication of deaf and deaf-blind people, who read words from the movement of their mouths and the shape of their fingers.
Barrier Free Japan