• Hard of Hearing

BIVR is an acronym for British Institute of Verbatim Reporters. A verbatim reporter is is a trained individual who attends meetings or events to take note of everything that is said for attendees who are hard of hearing. BIVR reporters are also frequently called upon in court to take note of the proceedings. It may sound like an easy job but reporters have to have excellent language, grammar, spelling and communication skills as well as the ability to type at least 180 words per minute.

BIVR help to train people to become verbatim reporters and raise public awareness as to how important their jobs are. Reporters are encouraged by BIVR to write short hand or use a stenograph to take record of what is being said. It is also the BIVR membership exam that an individual needs to pass in order to become a qualified verbatim reporter or STTR.

STTR is short for ’speech to text reporter’, who use stenographs or palantype to help the deaf and hard of hearing to cope with communication in work and educational environments. Similarly to BIVR, STTRs note down everything said but instead of creating a transcript their notes are projected on to a big screen.

RNID are another charity that help raise awareness for the deaf and hard of hearing. RNID is an acronym for Royal National Institute for the Deaf. RNID are the biggest charity aiding deaf people in the UK, helping the 9 million deaf/hard of hearing people get the same opportunities as everyone else. They aim to prevent the deaf and hard of hearing from feeling segregated and isolated by a lack of communication with others. They are currently conducting social, medical and technical research for their cause.