Hearing people and text phones

Dear Auntie Tina

I’m writing a training course for hearing people who will be taking calls at a charitable organisation. Some of these calls may be from people using a text phone. To prepare people for what this might be like, I’m looking for a video of what this experience might be like for the hearing person answering the phone, or for someone who would be willing to audio-record a short conversation with me (I’m hearing) so I can use it as a demo in the training. I haven’t found anything on YouTube and the resources so kindly forwarded by RNID show how a textphone works from the device-user perspective. Thanks very much in advance if anyone would like to help!

Kristen

Hi Kristen

There is information for hearing businesses on how to receive a textphone call at Text Relay. All textphone-to-phone calls are automatically routed through Text Relay. Don’t forget that some deaf people prefer to use voice carry over (VCO) . Further information can be found at Text Relay for businesses.

Keep an eye out for Captel as this service closed 2 years ago in the UK, but deaf people we hope it will return soon. It works much faster than Text Relay. This works a little differently from Text Relay – the operator cannot take part in the conversation and the only giveaway is a 3 second delay in connecting the caller to the speaker. The Telecommunications Action Group (TAG) may be able to help you with a video.

Don’t forget about video relay calls from deaf people. You may be able to get  a video of this from Significan’t in Blackheath, London, who run such a service.

Tina