Interesting conversation I had with my wife and it made me think. So, I went over to NAD's website and looked over their technology page section "Making communication and information accessible." There it is. "Making communication accessible." NAD pride itself as the
"...nation's premier civil rights organization of, by and for deaf and hard of hearing individuals in the United States of America."One major civil rights issue among deaf people is to have equal communication access with their hearing peers. How can NAD be an "informed consumer advocate" if they refuse to cover easy to use face to face communication devices such as the UbiDuo, the only device that use real time typing communication via a split screen? NAD covers only assistive listening technology, hearing aids, cochlear implants, Captioning for Access, Internet Access and Broadband, movie captioning, telephones and relay services, television and closed captioning, and Video Remote Interpreting.
NAD explains that
"....people who are deaf or hard of hearing were early and eager adopters of accessible text-based communication and information systems, such as pagers, e-mail, instant messaging, and the Internet, as well as early adopters of videophones."There are thousands of early adopters of UbiDuo users who covet the real time nature and ease of communication (there is no"typing a response" notification where you wait for a typed response) with hearing people who do not know sign language. These deaf people who are UbiDuo users are the bulwark on paving the way helping the hearing public on recognizing their need to have immediate communication access using a communication device that allow real time typed conversation on a standard sized keyboard using common, every day language such as English.
But on the NAD technology page there is no where to be found that discusses face to face communication devices. Using NAD's search feature I typed in "UbiDuo" and found no results. The same for "communication device" but it came up with one search result but it's not the same thing on what I'm discussing here.
Both culturally deaf and non-culturally deaf people use the UbiDuo. It's not like no culturally deaf people use the UbiDuo. They do. And, boy, do they ever use it. But that's beside the point here. The point is that NAD claim to represent and help deaf and hard of hearing people but do not even cover a very important communication accessible technology devices such as the UbiDuo. A simple communication concept that ensures leveling the playing field using the English language, for example. NAD does not have to tote the brand name but by the mere mentioning of a typed face to face communication device would be sufficient enough to let deaf (and hearing) people know that such communication devices exist out there. And that such an issue is a Civil Rights issue. Like the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division - Disability Rights Section page.
NAD needs to understand that text to text (typed) communication via a communication device is a Civil Rights issue under the ADA. Not covering it on their website, touted as the "...nation's premier civil rights organization of, by and for deaf and hard of hearing individuals in the United States of America," would be a sin.
NAD, do the right thing and help deaf people become more aware of other kinds of communication technologies that exist in the United States.