by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

Real time captioning of meetings is not only a blessing, but a necessity for many hard of hearing people. How often have you asked a meeting organizer if a meeting was going to be captioned, only to be met by a blank stare. After you explain what real time captioning is, and how important it is to your being able to understand the speaker, their next question is, “Where can I find a CART reporter?”

Don’t let this question throw you. Direct them to the National Court Reporters Association (NCRA) website and let them pick the reporter of their choice.

There are two ways to do this (and they give somewhat different results, so you may want to try both ways).

1. Go to the NCRA website. On the left side under “Find,” click on “CART Providers.” On the page that comes up, click on the link in the box on the right that says “Click here to search the CART provider directory.” This will take you to a page listing the states, where you click on the name of your state, and up pops a list of certified CART reporters.

2. Alternately, on the page with the map of the USA, click on the state in which the meeting is to be held.

When the desired state page opens, rather than click on “Retrieve All,” choose qualified CART reporters by choosing “Communications Access Realtime Translation” in the “Refine Your Search” box, then click on submit.

In a few seconds you will have a list of the qualified CART reporters in your state. It’s that simple.

If you want to find CART reporters in Canada or other countries, use the second method and choose your desired country from the box below the map of the USA.