Disability Services

ASL, CART, and Closed Captioning Accommodations

The Office of Disability Services coordinates services for students and program participants who are deaf or hard of hearing. Part of this is the provision of ASL interpreters, real-time transcription (CART), and closed captioning. The links below are for explaining these accommodations and processes for specific stakeholders.

ASL Interpreting

ASL (American Sign Language is a language with its own syntax and grammar that is used by people as a visual form of communication. ASL Interpreters are used for interpreting English speech to sign language. When communicating with a person using ASL it is expected that you will look at the person that you are communicating with and not the interpreter. It is also important that the interpreters be able to work with the speaker on their positioning and location so that they can best set themselves up to assist the person they are interpreting for. It is also helpful to make handouts and other materials used available to interpreters and the participant to aid in this communication.

Real-Time Captioning (CART)

CART is a services where a transcriber types the conversation so that the recipient is able to see the conversation in the room happening real-time. At CSU this is provided either by a person in the space or remotely by sending the audio of the session to a remote transcriptionist. It is very helpful if handouts or slides can be sent to the transcriptionist before the session to aid in faster transcription of terminology being used.

Closed Captioning (CC)

Closed captioning is used for providing the audio information in a text format when using videos either recorded or live streaming. This differs from subtitles for English because it also contains relevant information about sounds included in the video. Closed Captions are also able to be turned on and off. If there is embedded captions in a video it is called Open Captions. Subtitle tracks are generally intended for language translation and do not usually contain relevant sounds which are not spoken. Subtitle tracks often do not meet the needs of people who are hard of hearing or deaf.