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KSBVI
Clients and Staff
Participate In National Public Radio (NPR) Study by Michael Byington, Rehabilitation Support Worker |
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PDF You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view and print this document. If you do not have Acrobat Reader, you can get it free at Adobe. Maybe this article should really be called, "What I Did During A Short Summer Vacation." I ended up organizing a quick, August trip to Washington, D.C., for four of our Rehabilitation Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired (RCBVI) clients, and one other Kansas Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired (KSBVI) staff person in addition to myself. I did not do this because of my job, or as a part of my work. It was just something which fell into my lap, and which allowed me to include other staff, and some clients, in what turned out to be a very positive experience. I took vacation time to make the trip, but I was delighted that some of our RCBVI clients were able to come along. Because of past work I have done in the communications field, because I know a lot of blind and low vision people in Kansas, and mostly because I was the person they could find who was crazy enough to say, "yes," I was asked by the Kansas Audio Reader Network to find six persons who are totally or legally blind to participate in a national study on the listening habits and preferences of blind and low vision people. The study is being conducted by National Public Radio in Washington, D.C., and must involve blind and low vision people from all across the country. Study participants must meet certain demographic requirements as to their amount of functional vision, their age, sex, etc. At this point, there are really two topics worth covering as a part of this article. The study itself, and the impact it will have on information processing for blind is one story. The experiences of the RCBVI staff and clients in participating is another one. I will tell both stories, but I will start with the study itself. One hears of it in the press, on line, and through advertisements posted almost everywhere. DIGITAL is the wave of the future. Analogue transmission of sound is a fading chapter in world history. We now are transmitting sound digitally, and this is supposed to be better. Certainly there are elements of refinement, clarity, and precision available through digital sound production which are not possible through analogue. Digital transmission and storage of sound, however, are not just potentially more clear, these modalities also require differing bandwidth. More exacting sound transmission and/or storage can occur in much smaller areas than is the case with existing analogue modalities. Because of these changes, the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is assigning and apportioning out various digital bandwidths for various purposes. This may seem like boring techno-babble appropriate only for the profoundly geek-prone, but in fact, the issues are extremely controversial and relevant. The assignment of various bandwidths for various purposes will determine how well and how accurately we hear the various types of sounds which will come to us over broadcast media. For people who are blind or low vision, the quality and versatility of the transmission of auditory information is extremely important. After all, people who are blind and low vision get a much larger percentage of all of the information they use through auditory channels. The FCC has now largely determined what bandwidths will be apportioned for use by radio reading services for the blind and visually impaired, but refinements are still being made. Perhaps more important than refinements in the bandwidth is that information services for the blind and visually impaired are now having to decide what technologies will get the optimal mileage out of the bandwidth they expect to get. This is why NPR has become avidly interested in how blind and visually impaired citizens listen to and hear sounds. My initial contact with regard to the study came through an employee of the Kansas Audio Reader Network. At the time of the contact, Kansas was being asked to provide just two participants meeting two specific demographic categories. Alice Valdez, field Rehabilitation Teacher for KSBVI in the Kansas City area, had already been identified as one participant who wanted to join the study, and who met the demographic requirements. Alice was attempting to clear her schedule for the original proposed date for the Kansas participants to attend. In any case, this meant that we probably needed to find only one additional participant. The demographic requirements of that position fit RCBVI client Martha (Marti) McCartney and the RCBVI was going to be on its summer to fall break during August. I got Marti and the NPR folks together to start talking about her participation. It looked as if the study was going to be a good learning opportunity for only one RCBVI client, but suddenly, the participation opportunities expanded. The Audio Reader Network staff who was to attend the study with the two selected participants found that he had conflicts all through August. He called me and asked if I would be able to take his place in accompanying the two identified participants to Washington for the study. I explained that I had a conflict on the proposed date for the Kansas participants, and that I thought Alice Valdez was still struggling with the date as well. I was asked to contact the NPR study coordinators and see if there were alternate dates available for Kansas. After all, the study was going on over more than a month's time span. I contacted the study scheduler at NPR, Barbara Green-Freeman. She was aware of our scheduling problems and asked if we could come to Washington for testing to take place on August 4th instead of the original proposed date. The August 4th date was workable for the three of us, but Ms. Green-Freeman said she had one additional problem she wondered if we could help her solve. She actually needed three more blind or legally blind participants on that day, and she wondered if I could help her find three people to fill these slots as well. She explained the additional demographic requirements, and I rather quickly was able to identify three additional RCBVI clients who would be available and who met these requirements. Thus RCBVI clients Steve Caffey, Marty Cress, and Donna Sanborn were able to join our merry band of travelers.  Photograph: From left to right, Marty Cress, Edwardo Valdez, Donna Sanborn, Alice Valdez, and Marti McCartney pose between the Washington, D. C. Union Station and the Columbus Memorial the evening before participating in a National Public Radio study on listening. The husbands of Marti McCartney and Alice Valdez decided that they wanted to join us, so Mike McCartney and Edwardo Valdez made our traveling party number total eight. NPR flew us to Washington on August 3rd, and we returned on the 5th. We thus had a bit of time for sightseeing. The study process was in accordance with the parameters already described. We were divided into two groups of three. Each group rated various text and musical sounds based on overall quality, the degree of annoyance associated with distortions which were reflected in the samples, and whether the overall quality and level of distortion would cause us not to listen to the broadcast , assuming we had interest in its content. The NPR testers reported that they derived excellent and useable data from our two Kansas groups. We were at the NPR Headquarters for six to eight hours and participated in testing throughout much of that time, but there were breaks, and we had the opportunity to tour NPR's facilities. We saw the musicians studio where countless nationally known artists have done live performances for programs such as All Things Considered and Morning Edition. Those of us who chose to do so got to play the NPR grand piano used for these performances. We got to watch Neil Conan do a live broadcast of Talk of the Nation. We met at some length with one of the chief engineers for Talk of the Nation, and had the opportunity to discuss the study design and other relevant audio production issues. Although the trip was not a long one, we did have some time on either side of the study to do a bit of sightseeing. Although we went many places together, we were six blind and legally blind individuals, not Siamese sextuplets. Thus, although most of us went to most side trips together, there were opportunities for several of our group to go off on their own and do some individual sightseeing or visiting. Mr. Caffey had some relatives in the Washington area he had not seen in several years. We all explored Washington in groups of three to seven. Although this was not an official RCBVI sanctioned trip, the experience was an empowering one for those newly blinded clients who had the opportunity to participate. Getting to independently use a talking, Braille and tactile print marked subway fair ticket machine, for example, is an opportunity usually not available as a part of our orientation and mobility curriculum at the RCBVI in Kansas. Also, when using the Washington subway system, we all observed how helpful the detectable warnings recently installed on the platform edges are and how well they worked with the cane skills taught in Kansas.  Photograph: Like many large cities, Washington, D.C. has a beautification program which allows artists to place large works on the city streets. The motif when the Kansas delegation was there seemed to be bears. There were brightly decorated bears located throughout the downtown streets. Mike McCartney, Donna Sanborn, Marty Cress, and Marti McCartney socialize with a person-sized gold, red, white and blue bear located at 13th and F Streets N.W. in Washington. Alice and I were able to explain that these types of accommodations for blind and low vision travelers came to pass not because the folks who run the government are such a nice and considerate bunch that they just wanted to do that, but rather because of a law suit and a lot of lobbying done by the American Council of the Blind. In other words, the travel accommodations for blind and low vision travelers exist because blind people themselves fought for them and learned how to interact with their government to make them come to pass. We can teach advocacy skills as a part of the RCBVI Curriculum, but the teaching of such skills is rendered much more effective when tangible results can be experienced.  Photograph: After the NPR study was completed, Marti McCartney, Mike MCCartney, Donna Sanborn, Michael Byington and Steve caffey sat down at a seafood restaurant near the NPR National Headquarters for a relaxing meal. In summary, the trip was a time for fun, but also a time for validation of skills and application of the relevance of skills. It allowed six blind Midwesterners, and a couple of sighted folks who had the good judgment to marry two of them, to experience a fun and educational journey. It also allowed six blind and low vision Kansans to make a significant contribution to what audio broadcasts will be like for blind audio learners of the future. |
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