New York Times, April 3, 2020
To the Editor:
In 2015, Morton Ann Gernsbacher, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, published an article in the journal Policy Insights From the Behavioral and Brain Sciences entitled, “Video Captions Benefit Everyone.” She reviewed more than 100 studies on the benefits of video captioning and found that captioning “improves comprehension of, attention to, and memory for the video” for people of all ages and hearing ability.
Those of us with hearing loss have long understood the benefits of captioning. What may come as a surprise to people without hearing loss is that they would also be helped. With schools closed because of the coronavirus, education at all levels is primarily online with videos and lectures. This might be an opportune time for educators to consider adding captions to these presentations.
Jon Taylor
New York
The writer is vice president of Hearing Loss Association of America, New York City Chapter.