Families and school personnel (including those in training) who have at least one student with a disability can sign up for free membership.
Standards-aligned videos with high-quality captions and audio description.
Create lessons and assign videos to managed Student Accounts.
Educator and sign language training videos for school personnel and families.
Find resources for providing equal access in the classroom, making media accessible, and maximizing your use of DCMP's free services.
DCMP's Learning Center provides hundreds of articles on topics such as remote learning, transition, blindness, ASL, topic playlists, and topics for parents.
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DCMP offers the only guidelines developed for captioning and describing educational media, used worldwide.
Learn how to apply for membership, find and view accessible media, and use DCMP’s teaching tools.
DCMP offers several online courses, including many that offer RID and ACVREP credit. Courses for students are also available.
Asynchronous, online classes for professionals working with students who are deaf, hard of hearing, blind, low vision, or deaf-blind.
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For interpreters, audio describers, parents, and educators working with students who are hard of hearing, low vision, and deaf-blind.
Modules are self-paced, online trainings designed for professionals, open to eLearners and full members.
These self-paced, online learning modules cover the topics of transition, note-taking, and learning about audio description.
DCMP can add captions, audio description, and sign language interpretation to your educational videos and E/I programming.
Captions are essential for viewers who are deaf and hard of hearing, and audio description makes visual content accessible for the blind and visually impaired.
DCMP can ensure that your content is always accessible and always available to children with disabilities through our secure streaming platforms.
DCMP partners with top creators and distributors of educational content. Take a look
The DCMP provides services designed to support and improve the academic achievement of students with disabilities. We partner with top educational and television content creators and distributors to make media accessible and available to these students.
This listing was prepared from information provided by various description-related sources and from surveys conducted by the DCMP. While the DCMP has attempted to identify all service vendors, it apologizes for any omissions. As additional service vendors are identified, they will be included in this list. Listing of a service vendor does not constitute an endorsement by the U.S. Department of Education or the DCMP.
Years ago, my wife, Esther Geiger, was driving some children to a drama class, and the kids were chattering excitedly about the movie "Toys." It takes place in a toy factory, and the film is filled with colorful images and movement gags—but not a lot of dialogue. One child in the car, who was blind, said, "Oh, I saw that. It was the most boring movie I've ever been to!" Indeed, this was well before the advent of audio description for film.
Joanna Scavo, Aberdeen Broadcast Services, provides information for parents and teachers about the 2012 FCC rules for video description and captioning.
Discusses confusing research on kids' screen time
Emily Bell, Multimedia Manager at CaptionMax, gathered feedback from teachers who have used described educational videos in the classroom. In this short video clip, she provides six tips for getting the most from the programming. Ms. Bell presented these tips in the January 2012 VDRDC webinar "Bringing Video Description Into the 21st Century."
Margaret Hardy, a pioneer in the field of audio description, discusses Gregory Frazier's descriptive services work in San Francisco with AudioVision.
Reviews major events in the history of captioning
In June 2008 a survey was conducted of the top 35 educational media producers/distributors in the United States. Each company was asked about its products and whether they were accessible, either via captioning or description (or if both were available), whether they were familiar with either accessibility option, and how many of their customers requested either or both on the media items they intended to purchase.
The Audio Description Tip Sheet is intended as a quick reference for describers. View the DCMP Description Key for a comprehensive and accessible reference for audio description.
The five key reasons why you should utilize DCMP resources.
Bill Stark provides ten rules for effective use of captioned and described videos, with a dose of humor.
Kelly Warren, owner of Mind’s Eye Audio Productions, overviews the process of describing television, film, and video. She defines good description, discusses its complexities, and looks into its future.
In 2011, the authors, Joong-O Yoon and Minjeong Kim, examined the effects of captions on deaf students' content comprehension, cognitive load, and motivation in online learning. The participants in the study were 62 deaf adult students who had limited reading comprehension skills and used sign language as a first language. Participants were randomly assigned to either the control group or the experimental group. The independent variable was the presence of captions, and the dependent variables were content comprehension, cognitive load, and motivation. The study applied a posttest-only control group design. The results of the experiment indicated a significant difference (t = -2.16, p < .05) in content comprehension but no statistically significant difference in cognitive load and motivation between the two groups. These results led to suggestions for improvements in learning materials for deaf individuals. (American Annals of the Deaf, v.156, no. 3, Summer 2011).
A dissertation submitted by Aaron Steinfeld, University of Michigan, 1999. Guidelines for the developers of captioning devices were made: (1) Real-time captions (RTC) are beneficial for both deaf and hearing students; (2) Location of a RTC display (desk or podium) has no impact on recall performance; (3) RTC devices should display at least four lines of text. However, there is only theoretical support for displays of more than four lines of text; (4) Higher amounts of sentence lag seem to improve performance (up to two lines or 6 seconds). It is possible that larger levels of lag may result in decreased performance; (5) A higher rate of presentation (200 vs. 160 wpm) appears to have a negative impact on performance for deaf subjects when lag is present, and; (6) Users are reasonably good at determining their ideal device parameters given the opportunity to experience their choices. However, deaf users may perform better with lag even though their preference for it is low.
In May 2011, the Texas Education of Blind and Visually Impaired Students Advisory Committee offered teachers, parents, and students with visual impairments across the United States and Canada an opportunity to submit a short video on the theme, "Social Skills: Putting the ‘C’ in Cool." The contest provided a perfect opportunity to highlight a favorite lesson to teach social skills at home, school, or in the community.
