Although she went to a public school, there were trained teachers of the deaf who could focus on areas where deaf students struggled. They also had Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART), also called open captioning or real-time stenography. (This, is the general name of the system that court reporters, closed captioners, voice writers and others use to convert speech to text.) An excellent student, Kristen did well at West Chester University, where she majored in Psychology, minored in Studio Art and had CART available for all classes. “Socially, I didn’t (do well),” she said. “It was really hard to go from a home where every one knew who you were and knew how to talk to you to a complete foreign experience where you meet tons of new people every day. There were a lot of group get-togethers, and it was very hard for me to follow through. Reading lips in a.....MORE
