TV subtitles for hearing-impaired viewers are inefficient, study finds
A team of researchers in Spain have discovered that both the speed at which subtitles appear on television and the actual translation of the dialogues impact the level of understanding of subtitled programmes by teens and children suffering from deafness. The research is published in the journal American Annals of the Deaf. While subtitles in TV programmes have been used for nearly two decades, questions remained as to how well deaf people comprehend what they're reading on screens and how they understand the messages transmitted through the images. The researchers from the UAB Research Centre for Hearing Impairment and Language Acquisition (GISTAL) aimed to shed light on this issue. With respect to the teenagers participating in the research, the sample consisted of 20 students aged between 12 and 19 years with profound or severe deafness. All of the participants attended schools with children who are not hearing impaired, and use lip-reading and auditory prostheses to communicate with their peers. The researchers used visual, audio, oral and written information to assess the participants' level of understanding. The students were asked to explain what was happening in a segment of the 'El cor de la ciutat' (The Heart of the City) Catalan TV soap opera. The first viewing was conducted without sound, the second with sound, and the third with sound and subtitles. The first viewing showed that 30% of the students had a global understanding of what had happened in the segment by only watching the images. For the second and third viewings, which included sound and then subtitles, 40% understood what was shown on the TV screen. According to the researchers, the data showed that current subtitles are insufficient for teenagers with hearing impairments. They also explained that the speed at which these subtitles appeared and the actual translation of the dialogues failed to give the students enough time to look at the images and gain an overall understanding of what was taking place on the screen. For the younger participants, the researchers conducted two studies: the first assessed 7 children aged 6 and 7 years, and the other evaluated 16 children aged between 7 and 10 years. A segment of the animation 'Shin-Chan' was shown to them. The researchers chose to show the second group the animation with subtitles they created by using new speed and text-selection criteria. The data showed that only 2% of the participants in group 1 (with the regular subtitles) understood what the animation was about, while 65.5% of the second group (with the augmented subtitles) gained an overall understanding of the segment. Based on the results, the researchers said currently used criteria must be reviewed and new parameters must be defined when hearing impairment assessments are made. These changes should consider the information offered by the spoken language, sound in general, images, and the language skills of deaf viewers. The professors said two general criteria should be followed. Firstly, the need to respect the heterogeneity of the hearing impaired, and the possibility to select from more than one type of subtitle (different degrees of language complexity should be available), and secondly, subtitling only essential information that cannot be deduced by the images. The latter, they said, would particularly benefit children's programmes. According to the researchers, another important factor to consider is that subtitles should be adapted for deaf children because they are in the process of learning to read, and subtitles can help encourage them to strengthen their reading skills. Through their research, the professors will develop teaching and learning material for teachers and parents of children with hearing impairments. The research was supported by the Audiovisual Council of Catalonia (CAC) and the Spanish Ministry for Education and Science (MEC).
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