Colombia. According to the latest data from DANE, in Colombia there are 455,718 people reported with profound deafness or hearing loss (loss of hearing capacity), which is equivalent to 17% of the total population with a disability in the country.
For the National Television Authority - ANTV, inclusion is a priority and that is why it suggests including, in television spaces, one of the following systems that guarantee the hearing impaired population access to the content of said space.
Closed Captioning
The English term, caption, translates verbatim into Spanish as a caption. In his notion Closed Captioning for television it is understood as a hidden subtitling system, because he subtitles in the same language as the audio. It is optional for the viewer and has the particularity of specifying expressions, particular sounds such as timbres, thunder, crying, screaming, shooting, music and as many variables as can be imagined, through written language.
Its first uses can be located next to the splendor of silent cinema, when stories were told through images and text. However, with the adaptations of sound to image, it was forgotten until the seventies, when the mechanism regained strength, in order to send additional information in text during television broadcasts. The 'French Chef' of the PBC network in the United States, was the first television program that made use of the system. To this day, the U.S. Commission on Disabilities has considered "the Closed Captioning system for television to be the most significant technological development for deaf people."
Subtitling
Often, it is necessary to make the difference between the Closed Caption system and the Open Caption, since the latter is done in a language other than the audio and does not contain the specificity of ambient sounds, music and expressions. The open feature also refers to the fact that it is not optional.
The National Institute of Subtitles in the United States and other similar entities have found that through the use of subtitled television, people with disabilities or not, can improve their skills in reading, listening and writing. Better results can also be obtained in the learning programs of another language and in the population interested in expanding vocabulary or perfecting the spelling of their language, among others.
Sign Language
It exists as a principle of communication between individuals in various cultures since time immemorial. However, only until the seventeenth century did the first exercises begin to be done to unify and link certain gestures with specific words and letters. In Colombia, sign language has been defined in Law 982 of 2005, as the natural language of the deaf community and is part of its cultural heritage.
It is as rich and complex in grammar and vocabulary as any oral language. It is characterized by being visual, gestural and spatial. It has expressions, vocabulary and syntax different from Spanish. For the viewer, it is easy to identify this system, because it is a box on the screen, where a professional appears who translates through gestures what is being transmitted.
