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As printed in Hearing Health, volume 20:3,
Fall 2004
By Donna L. Schillinger, Assistant Editor
Watching your family’s comfy old couch get dragged
out of the house onto the street and flattened by a
monster truck would upset most people. But Judy and
Larry Vardon looked on in amusement as they watched
live video of their beloved but frayed furnishings being
smashed to bits.
And why not? They were off with their sons Stefan,
14, and Lance, 12, on an all-expense-paid vacation,
part of their dizzying week as the featured family on
ABC’s Extreme Makeover Home Edition.
They were assured of coming home to a brand new
sofa … and much more.
That’s the way it works on the Sunday night
reality show that regularly pulls in a few million viewers
to see sensational scenes of destruction and truly inventive
renovations. Led by Ty Pennington, that zany carpenter
of Trading Spaces fame, a team of experts transforms
a humble abode into a dream home in only a week. Each
step, however quirky, fits into a plan customized to
rescue a family genuinely in need of a break.
Apparently the Vardon makeover had more than the usual
appeal. The program’s ratings took a big jump
when 20.5 million people tuned in for their special
two-hour episode on November 7. Sure, there was the
usual “ooh” factor in all the goodies the
family received and the requisite cringe-inducing scenes
as the roof was yanked off their Oak Park, Mich., home.
Perhaps what had the biggest impact, however, was the
“ah” factor of the quietly powerful individuals
in this very likable family, the poignancy of their
situation and the “extreme” quality of the
show’s high-tech solutions to their most pressing
needs.
Both Judy and Larry have had severe-to-profound hearing
loss for much of their lives and use American Sign Language
(ASL) as their primary method of communication. Interacting
with their hearing sons is a challenge, significantly
compounded by the fact that Lance is blind and has autism.
Stefan is the only member of the family who is hearing,
uses sign language and has fully developed verbal skills.
As such, he has shouldered a monumental responsibility
most of his life – helping listen for his brother’s
needs and being his brother’s eyes. It was Stefan’s
concern about his family’s future, expressed in
a school essay, that inspired the Makeover team to intervene.
After comprehending the complexity of the situation,
Pennington and company decided their priorities were
to make communication easier for the Vardons, address
safety issues faced by parents who are deaf or hard-of-hearing
(D/HH) and counteract heightened security concerns presented
by an autistic child. This would require utilizing state-of-the-art
assistive technology plus creating additional equipment
to answer the unusual challenges faced by the family.
To help, the Makeover team enlisted the innovative experts
from HITEC Group International in Burr Ridge, Ill.
Michele Ahlman, HITEC’s vice president, and
her crew came swooping in after the interior walls came
down, working amid frantic construction activity in
order to meet the seven-day deadline. First, they tackled
the task most likely to reduce the number of sleepless
nights and anxious moments for the Vardons.
They partnered with Gentex, an international fire
protection and safety product manufacturer, to install
strobe-light smoke detectors and a strobe alarm that
signals if Lance leaves the house unattended. Both systems
also activate HITEC’s Clear Sounds Wake and Shake
Alarm Clock installed on the parents’ bed. And
should Lance get very far from home before Judy and
Larry reach him, a tracking device sewn into his pajamas
helps local authorities pinpoint his location.
Invention became a necessity in order to facilitate
in-house communication for the family. HITEC designers
developed a product that enables text or voice relay
between all rooms in the Vardon residence. It reaches
even into the “madeover” basement that houses
Stefan’s bedroom, Lance’s specially equipped
playroom and Judy’s art and craft area.
The newly created system requires a high-speed Internet
service and can essentially connect the seeing members
of the family with anyone, anywhere, anytime. Within
the house, it allows Judy, Larry and Stefan to sign
to each other from different rooms or to reach outside
the home to friends and family via a direct video link.
Dubbed TEXTNET by its creators, the system also works
in conjunction with video relay and text-to-voice relay
providers and has instant text messaging capabilities.
“What we created was a universally designed system
to address the needs of D/HH
parents and to have high appeal to hearing people as
well,” claims Ahlman.
HITEC and its collaborators Gentex, MCI and SBC Communications
donated
equipment and services totaling approximately $10,000,
a price tag that puts it out of reach for many families
who could benefit. But Ahlman says that the company
has been inspired to make the “real-life solution”
more affordable.
In fact, the first version of TEXTNET Home Edition
will be available in mid-2005 for around $1,000, a price
that is comparable to a high-end stand-alone text telephone.
It will require a computer with a high-speed Internet
connection and a webcam for video relay or video conferencing
and will have some truly cutting-edge voice capabilities.
They include voice communications for the direct video
link, voice recognition software that translates speech
to text and computer-simulated voice software to change
text into speech.
None of the voice-related components are installed
on the Vardon’s system. The autism experts that
the show had on hand to help create a smooth post-makeover
transition for Lance suggested the sound of computerized
voices might upset him.
In an email exchange with Hearing Health a few weeks
after getting settled in her renovated home, Judy said,
“We communicate with Lance by finger spelling
on the palm of his hand. He doesn’t use verbal
language much though he can talk and understand. It’s
hard for him to express his feelings with words.”
Lance does type and read Braille so the Makeover team
came up with a computer on which other family members
can type a message that prints in Braille. Lance then
types his reply on his Braille typewriter and the computer
translates it into words that Judy, Larry and Stefan
can see on the PC monitor. Judy told us, “It’s
a new technology. We’re just beginning and we
practice together. For now, our communication with Lance
is basically still the same.”
Near the end of the Makeover episode, Academy
Award winner Marlee Matlin walked into the yard, stunning
the Vardons with the surprise. Pennington and team wanted
to show their admiration for Stefan by securing his
college education and had enlisted Matlin’s assistance
earlier in the makeover week.
She went to work and the result? Stefan received a
$50,000 college scholarship, a gift from The Starkey
Hearing Foundation. Bill Austin, president of the charitable
organization, popped in to present the giant check.
Founder of Starkey Laboratories, a major hearing aid
company, and a life-long advocate for better hearing,
Austin provided the sizeable donation with the caveat
that Judy and Larry have their hearing tested. It had
been a long time since they had done so.
The audiological exam revealed that today’s
hearing technology could in fact be of assistance. Since
then, Judy has been fitted with Starkey hearing aids,
her first new aids in 25 years. Of the unexpected gift,
Judy said, “They make such a big difference. I
will always be hard-of- hearing but this new technology
in hearing aids helps me a lot to hear sounds around
the house and outside.”
The Vardon episode provided a good lesson in communication
for the entire Makeover team and millions of Americans.
So deeply dependent on speech and hearing, we often
take for granted how effective non-verbal communication
can be – sign language certainly and the human
touch especially. By entering the home and world of
the Vardons, we were reminded of how much can be conveyed
by touch and affection as we observed their interaction
with Lance.
“One-on-one communication and human contact is
what holds us together,” says Ahlman. She is clearly
impressed with the rapport Judy and Larry have with
their children and the close bond between the boys.
In contrast, there was an obvious communication chasm
between the members of the Makeover team, all of whom
are hearing, and the family. According to Ahlman, “The
dynamics of drawing the two worlds together was quite
interesting and makes you realize the need for this
kind of exposure about the Deaf community in the mainstream.”
Speaking admiringly of the efforts made by the show’s
stars to communicate with the family, she reflects,
“They really do care. They got emotional through
the whole process and you can’t fake that –
especially when the cameras were off.”
For more on the Vardon episode of Makeover,
go to http://abc.go.com/primetime/xtremehome/
and click "Meet the Families.” To learn more
about TEXTNET, contact HITEC at www.hitec.com.
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