Have you ever wondered why those pesky words pop up on your television screen sometimes? These words are the product of countless attempts of equaling the playing field of our society. The words you see are called, "Closed Captioning". These words allow the hearing impaired to watch television just like we do, in the hearing world. I will try to give you a basic background of this technological breakthrough.
             In 1972 the first captioned broadcast was, "The French Chef" a PBS show. The group that was responsible for this accomplishment was the "Caption Center". By 1987, the Caption Center was given a grant for three years in the sum of 1 million dollars so they could close caption all nationally syndicated television programming. (Caption center, www.caption.org) As of July of 1993, all television sets with at least a 13-inch screen had to have a decoder built into them that would allow viewers to display closed captioning. This was not a new phenomenon for viewers. Closed Captioning has existed since the early 1900's when silent films were introduced to the world. It wasn't until recently that closed captioning would be used as a tool for the hearing impaired. In 1996, congress passed laws that made all video, cable or public broadcasters phase in closed captioning into their programs. (Robson, PG 222)
             Closed captions are a key to the social link between both the deaf and the hearing worlds. CC, which also means closed captioning, is a way for deaf viewers to interact with the world around them. CC allows deaf people to watch television and participate in other venues like concerts, meetings and speeches. CC is a major breakthrough and the deaf community owes its presence to the Americans with Disabilities Act, (also known as ADA) for the revamping of their laws, because before the revamping only government-funded or government-produced public service announcements were close
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