A Hearing Aide

Jared Schlanser arrives early to class to set up his stenography equipment, the laptop whirring on the desk next to him. Students nod to him as they enter the room. For the next hour he transcribes everything the teacher says for a hearing-impaired student to read from the screen. The student hears little, but is able to participate without missing a word. \nSchlanser works on campus for Accu-Type, a company that provides computer-aided, real-time transcription for the hearing impaired. \nJunior Katie Southern has five classes with Schlanser's assistance. Southern can read lips in one-on-one conversations, but her classes involve student questions and the professor's movement, making Schlanser's help invaluable. As the instructor speaks, the keystrokes on the stenograph transmit to the computer screen. Schlanser loves helping, and said it gives him a personal satisfaction.\n"If I write really well for a class, then Katie will say, 'Wow, thanks a lot, because I never would have gotten that on my own,'" Schlanser said. \nSchlanser trained to become a court reporter at Sparks College in Shelbyville, Ill., and worked doing depositions for a court reporting firm in St. Louis, Mo. before calling Accu-Type. He was not satisfied with his job. \n"He has a very caring heart and is perfect for this kind of work," says Stephanie Piratzky, founder of Accu-Type. \nSophomore Josh Reiher attends three classes with Schlanser. He has trouble hearing in lectures where the teacher's microphone is unrecognizable to his hearing aid. Also, many professors have beards, making their lips unreadable in a lecture hall, Reiher said. In these cases, Schlanser can be of immense help. \nWhen a recent knee surgery kept Reiher out of class for a week, Schlanser recorded them so Reiher wouldn't miss anything. Schlanser drives Reiher to his classes while his knee heals.\nReiher calls him a dedicated and extremely reliable friend, and said the two take time to get to know each other by playing golf, talking and hanging out. \nReiher said the funniest moments are in class, when, after an hour of starring at a computer screen full of dry information, something humorous from the professor will pop up. Reiher glances at Schlanser and bursts into laughter. \nSchlanser helps his students in any way he can, once flying to Chicago with a student to help him through interviews. Schlanser's sense of responsibility makes him Piratzky's first call if she needs business taken care of in Indiana.\nSchlanser's classroom presence piques both professors' and students' curiosities about himself and those he helps. \n"People, at the beginning of the semester, wonder what all the stuff is," Southern said. "Some guy came up to me and asked if I was from another country."\nSchlanser recalled that one professor asked him to the front of the class to explain who he is and what the equipment is for. Professors go out of their way to help him by restating students' questions, and many think well of the program. \n"I was delighted to hear that it exists," said Professor John Turner of the School of Fine Arts. "Education at this University should be open to everybody, and it should be possible for anybody to take a class."\nTurner helps Schlanser by writing new terms on the overhead before class and spells out the same terms while teaching, as Schlanser may not have technical terms entered into the dictionary. \nSince starting at IU in September 2000, Schlanser's operating dictionary has swelled from 13,000 to more than 30,000 words. He works until early morning, sometimes entering new words into his dictionary and memorizing the keystrokes for those terms. He said the Fine Arts classes have done the most to expand the dictionary, as many terms are unique to particular time periods.