28 CFR Parts 35 and 36, Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability by Public Accommodations - Movie Theaters; Movie Captioning and Audio Description (NPRM)
2. Numbers of Individuals with Hearing and Vision Disabilities
According to 2010 census data, 7.6 million people reported that they experienced a hearing difficulty (defined as experiencing deafness or having difficulty hearing a normal conversation, even when wearing a hearing aid). Of those individuals, 1.1 million reported having a severe difficulty hearing. In addition, 8.1 million people reported having some degree of difficulty seeing (defined as experiencing blindness or having difficulty seeing words or letters in ordinary newsprint even when normally wearing glasses or contact lenses). Of those individuals, 2.0 million reported they were blind or unable to see. See U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Commerce, P70-131, Americans with Disabilities: 2010 Household Economic Studies at 8 (2012), available at http://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/p70-131.pdf (last visited July 14, 2014). For people aged 65 or older, Census data indicated that 4.2 million had difficulty hearing (as defined by the Census), and 3.8 million reported having difficulty seeing (as defined by the Census). Id. As stated above, for several reasons it is unlikely that all people who reported having a vision or hearing disability to the Census would benefit from this rule. However, hearing and vision loss are highly correlated with aging, and as the U.S. population ages,14 the number of individuals with hearing or vision loss is projected to increase significantly. Research indicates that the number of Americans with a hearing loss has doubled during the past 30 years. See American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, The Prevalence and Incidence of Hearing Loss in Adults, available at http://www.asha.org/public/hearing/disorders/prevalence_adults.htm (last visited July 14, 2014). Experts predict that by 2030, severe vision loss will double along with the country’s aging population. See American Foundation for the Blind, Aging and Vision Loss Fact Sheet, available at http://www.afb.org/section.aspx?FolderID=3&SectionID=44&TopicID=252&DocumentID=3374 (last visited July 14, 2014). This increase will likely lead to a corresponding increase in the number of people who will need captioning or audio description. Not all these individuals will necessarily take advantage of the movie captioning and audio description that would be provided under this proposed rule, but a significant portion of this population would be eligible to directly benefit from this proposed rule (see, infra, section VI.A.3 for a more detailed discussion of the population eligible to receive benefits).
The Department believes that captioning will be used by some persons with moderate hearing loss as well as persons with severe hearing loss or who are profoundly deaf. Many individuals with hearing loss have difficulty discriminating among competing sounds in the movie and understanding what they hear, even if they can hear those sounds. Sounds from other patrons can also interfere with the ability of a patron with partial hearing loss to catch all the dialogue in a movie. Other individuals have difficulty understanding what is being said if the actors speak with foreign accents or have poor enunciation, and those patrons who rely even partly on lip reading will miss some dialogue because they cannot always see the actor’s face. Individuals with hearing loss who have some level of improved hearing comprehension aided by hearing aids, middle ear implants, and cochlear implants, may also experience the same difficulty discriminating among competing sounds in the movie environment as those individuals with unaided partial hearing loss.15 It is critical that all of these individuals are not shut out of an emblematic part of our culture.
14. The percentage of Americans approaching middle age or older is increasing. The 2010 Census found that during the decade spanning 2000 to 2010, the percentage of adults aged 45 to 64 years increased by 31.5 percent while the population aged 65 and over grew at a rate of 15.1 percent. By contrast, the population of adults between 18 and 44 grew by only 0.6 percent. U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Commerce, C2010BR-03, Age and Sex Composition in the United States: 2010 Census Brief 2 (2011), available at www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-03.pdf (last visited July 14, 2014).
15. “While many people tend to think that the only factor in hearing loss is loudness, there are actually two factors involved: loudness and clarity. Loss generally occurs first in the high pitch, quiet range. A mild loss can cause one to miss 25-40% of speech, depending on the noise level of the surroundings and distance from the speaker. When there is background noise, it becomes difficult to hear well; speech may be audible but may not be understandable.” Hearing Loss Association of Oregon, Facing the Challenge: A Survivor’s Manual for Hard of Hearing People (revised 4th ed. Spring 2011), at 8, available at http://www.hearinglossor.org/survivor-manual-2015.pdf (last visited July 14, 2014). The degrees of hearing loss include: 1) Mild (25 to 40 dB): Faint or distant speech may be difficult; lip reading can be helpful; 2) Moderate (41 to 55 dB): Conversational speech can be understood at a distance of three to five feet; as much as 50% of discussions may be missed if the voices are faint or not in line of vision; 3) Moderately Severe (56 to 70 dB): Speech must be loud in order to be understood; group discussions will be difficult to follow; 4) Severe (71 to 90 dB): Voices may be heard from a distance of about 1 foot from the ear; and 5) Profound (more than 91dB): Loud sounds may be heard, but vibrations will be felt more than tones heard; vision rather than hearing, is the primary avenue for communication. Id.
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