I’ll be posting further information about the events on the website at http://www.standards-next.org later this week.

Wow, what an amazing response, i am glad you found this interview useful and i am really looking forward to standards next tomorrow! To quickly answer some questions:

re : The Specialists.

i think it is a cool idea, however i have a few reservations regarding specifics of how they do things. Many times a service designed to help, can help people into a corner. Without knowing more specially what they are doing, and how they propose to use their model in the UK i cannot really answer. The big issue is security & support. In the UK any support you get is dependent on being on benefits, i had to battle very hard and very long to access proper support services when i went independent. My fear is that someone would get support to work with this organization, however if it fails they are left without support (as the state support would have stopped) and would be unable to reapply, you would be amazed how many young autistic people end up homeless or on the streets simply because of the forms and that at 18 the children’s services no longer think you exist. However, i am open minded and would be very interested in seeing how this progresses.

RE: Audio transcripts.

Normally, if i am struggling with the speed of the language i will give up. Often a transcript does not translate the meaning well, or it is difficult to understand on its own. Often if i am starting to struggle with language speed i will simple just stop consuming that video.

Captions i find useful, very useful in fact and i am very excited about the caption related technology coming in HTML5. However, again i can still have trouble with this when they are moving very quickly or there are two people talking. As soon as there are multiple sources talking, captions stop working for me and it all starts going wrong!

Hope that helps answer your questions,

^licks^

Jamie & Lion