YouTube Closed Captioning as Assistive Technology

Many teachers use YouTube to play videos or as a platform for students to publish their video projects. However, many do not realize that YouTube automatically generates subtitles and that you can edit these subtitles. These subtitles can make a huge difference for students who have trouble hearing. This tool can also help students who do not have hearing impairments. These students can benefit from captions by sharpening their reading and listening skills. This can particularly help students who struggle with reading to see words associated with relevant images and video content. Captions can also help students with cognitive delays by helping the students to process the information presented in the video. Some special education teachers have argued that using closed captioning in the classroom is more than just useful assistive technology. According to these professionals, it is also the law according to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

The following video from Michigan Virtual's The Accessible Classroom series explains how to edit closed captions in order to benefit students with hearing impairments. In order to edit closed captions, the teacher using this resource must have a Google/YouTube account. It is important to review and edit the automatically generated closed captions because the speech recognition technology and learning algorithms that create the captions automatically are not perfect. The automatic captions are available in ten languages, including English, Spanish, French and Japanese.

The YouTube Help Center also provides instructions for using and editing closed captions on videos. However, these instructions are more brief and do not include visual aids. Users can even invite others to contribute to the transcriptions or translations of a video. This could be a great way for an IEP (Individualized Education Plan) team to decide together how to present the material to a student with a disability.