The increasing demand for C-Print services

A computer-aided speech-to-print transcription system, C-Print was developed by the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) as a classroom support service for deaf and hard-of-hearing students in mainstream educational environments. Nine people participated in C-Print's first workshop in July 1996, which was conducted by project staff from the Department of Educational and Career Research. In a little over a year, the C-Print program has reached as far as New Mexico, Oklahoma, and California.

Since its inception, C-print has been used in both secondary and postsecondary programs. Its major advantages are its real time capability and the fact that it provides a complete transcript with up to 80-85% of the important information. Compared with computer-assisted notetaking, C-print provides far more information and detail. In addition, C-Print can serve as a cost effective alternative to Computer-Assisted Real Time Transcription (CART) services or having both an interpreter and paid notetaker.

One misconception that has surfaced in some programs hosting C-Print is the belief of some administrators that C-Print provides a solution for all deaf and hard-of-hearing students. According to Pam Giles, C-Print project coordinator, more education is needed to emphasize and ensure that C-Print has an appropriate audience. Many oral, hard-of-hearing students who use English as their native language can benefit from C-Print. However, for many deaf students who use American Sign Language as their native language, C-Print would not meet their communication needs because it is an English-based system.

Although the C-Print concept originated at NTID in 1989, it wasn't until NTID received a three-year grant to develop and evaluate the system in December 1993 that the project began to grow. The first training workshop occurred near the end of that first grant. The second grant focuses on implementation involving a number of sites. Locally, Board of Cooperative Education Services #1, NTID, and other colleges from the Rochester Consortium of Area Colleges were chosen, as well as the San Diego City Schools and University High School in Irvine, California.

o date, 33 C-Print captionists have been trained. The C-Print program is involved in training captionists to provide C-Print services in the classroom and to train others in their home state. In April 1997 site visits were made to the institutions using C-Print to follow up with new captionists and their institutions, and in May workshops were held in Rochester and California to gather information from each institution about their experiences with C-Print and to gather suggestions for developing effective practices. This information will lead to a written implementation manual which will be finalized in 1999.

The demand for services like C-Print is definitely growing. For C-Print the future involves improving technology (i.e., speech recognition and infrared) and developing more effective practices for training, working with schools, and supporting students who use the system.