Speaker 1: Any phone call coming into this device will caption the entire conversation.

Speaker 2: It's similar to closed captioning on TV. The captions appear right on the screen, just like these words you are reading now.

Speaker 3: If you have a hard time hearing over the phone, this kind of phone could change your life. And it's just the beginning of what the Department of Excellence in Disabilities has to offer.

Speaker 2: So please feel free to lift the handset or press the buttons.

Speaker 3: If you'd prefer a louder phone to reading the conversation, they've got those too.

Speaker 1: I'm showing you different ones that are all going to amplify the telephone communication. We kind of bring people in, they can try out a variety of these different amplification devices, and then they acquire the device through our reprogram.

Speaker 3: There are headphones for watching TV and alarms.

Speaker 1: This is something that helps them get out of bed in the morning. It's a vibrating alarm, so you clip it to your pillow and connect it to this main module. And when your alarm goes off, this will vibrate under your pillow to help you get out of bed if you have hearing loss and can't hear a regular alarm. If someone pushes the doorbell, it will do a visual alert for you. If you want to wear a pager, that will go off when your baby starts crying.

Speaker 3: Scott Youngs knows the need for assistive technology, and he's on a mission to get it all into the hands of those who need it.

Speaker 1: The caption phones are part of the Telecommunication Equipment Distribution Program. That's a statewide program. And there's lots of different devices and things that would allow people to communicate more effectively in various situations. It's a free program, so that's a good thing, and it's statewide. So we have offices in Reno and Las Vegas that people can call to ask for information about communicating more effectively over the telephone. It's absolutely essential to incorporate assistive technology in your daily life. Everyone has barriers. Everyone that's aging will have more barriers as they age. So it's critical that they incorporate and explore assistive technology.

Speaker 3: So it really does change their life to be able to communicate.

Speaker 1: I hear back from people all the time that, thank God I made that phone call to you guys, and I wouldn't know what I would do now if someone took this assistive technology away from me. So yeah, it's very helpful for people.

Speaker 3: You know what your barriers are, and you should also know there's help available.

Speaker 1: The program actually does a lot more things than just the caption-type telephones. So it's any device that can help someone with a barrier because of a disability. The communication program is one of the programs at the Center for Excellence in Disabilities, and the other program is a more general exploration of all assistive technology for all disabilities. So we have lots of different stuff. Like my wheelchair is an assistive technology device. So if you took that away, obviously I wouldn't be able to get from A to B. So that's one of the things that, for mobility, we can offer as well. So calling us, have a conversation about what your barriers are, a little bit about what your disability might be, so that we can have a conversation about things that we can help you explore to make your quality of life better.

Speaker 3: And Scott knows how to access it all. ♪