Did you know that approximately 1.2% of students have hearing impairments, and around 5% suffer from learning disabilities? Education is a fundamental right for everyone, and the inaccessibility of educational content to these groups is an important issue that cannot be ignored. Thanks to technical advancements that have helped address the accessibility challenge, closed captioning is one such advancement that the educational sector has increasingly embraced to ensure that the content is effectively delivered to all students, regardless of their disabilities and differences, in addition to its benefits of enhancing comprehension and user experience.
Moving ahead, we'll discuss how the inclusion of closed captions made learning more engaging, dynamic, and accessible for all students.
When did close captioning in education start?
Although closed captions have existed for films since the 1980s, they slowly gained popularity among educational sites during the late 1990s due to the rise of digital tools and platforms, which leveraged education experiences to a new level.
One of the frontier institutes that led the way was Gallaudet University, a university for hearing-impaired students that utilized closed captions in its educational programs to make its content accessible to its students.
Moreover, the concept of inclusivity and legal requirements during the early 2000s encouraged the use of closed captioning by different institutes, such as the University of California, which adopted closed captions to improve the accessibility of their digital content.
51.9% of students use a little help of closed captions to understand their lessons better
Benefits of Closed Captions in Edtech
Adding closed captions has many advantages to improve the overall effectiveness of your educational content. Let's explore some key impacts of closed captions.
Enhancing comprehension and retention: A study revealed that 51.9% of students use a little help of closed captions to understand their lessons better. And why won’t they? When spoken content is represented as text, the engagement of both ears and eyes helps the brain focus more to understand the material better.
Promoting accessibility and inclusivity: A key role of closed captions is to make education accessible, inclusive, and engaging to students suffering from challenges and learning disabilities. Closed captions additionally benefit non-native speakers, such as ESL (English as a Second Language) learners to assess and understand videos in different languages, thereby enhancing overall accessibility.
Supporting Flexible Learning: The preference to watch video without sound applies not only to reels or Facebook videos, but also to online educational videos, where students in a noisy or sound-sensitive environment often find it more comfortable to assess the videos using closed captions. Moreover, it encourages self-paced learning by allowing learners to read along with the audio.
Enhancing Searchability and Reference: Isn’t it very tedious to go through the entire video just to find a specific section which might come in your exam? Through closed captions, learners can easily search for specific terms or concepts and review the key points of the video.
Improving Content Quality: Transcripts generated from the closed captions serve as a tool for improving the quality of instructional materials and the quality of teaching.
Legal importance of closed captions
In addition to the many benefits of closed captions, some countries like the U.S. have made them legally required under laws such as Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the ADA. These laws mandate the inclusion of closed captions to ensure accessibility and inclusivity. Educational institutes or edtech companies planning to expand their influence must seriously consider the inclusion of closed captions in their online educational videos to avoid costly legal battles. High-profile cases like Harvard University's lawsuit by the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) highlight the legal importance of including closed captions.
Beyond legal compliance, closed captions play a significant role in meeting accessibility requirements in areas like education, ensuring all students, regardless of impairments, learning differences, or language barriers, can access valuable knowledge.
At Textar, we intend to provide an inclusive and enriched educational environment where every learner accesses the content equally. Our perfect combination of AI and human-generated captions is focused on breaking barriers and building a future where knowledge is accessible to all. Join us if our vision of accessibility resonates with you.
Contact: sales@timbel.net
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