Accessible Touch Language Uses Concepts, not Grammar

President of Signtel Inc. for more than 20 years, Raanan Liebermann leads the Connecticut based company in creating innovative technology to revolutionize life for blind, deaf and blind deaf individuals. In addition to developing inspirational devices enabling people access to function independently, Raanan Liebermann created and developed the transformative Touch Language for deaf and blind persons.

Sign Language is based in language structure and has a grammatical format; translating signing to writing in standard English is a significant challenge. Touch Language aims to overcome obstacles associated with sign language; it is independent of structural linguistic patterns and is therefore able to
operate across languages and cultures.

Touch Language utilizes concepts rather than grammar and vocabulary to communicate ideas. The language requires use of electronic gloves which users wear while making pecking motions and vibrations with and on their hands. By using the hands and fingers to communicate concepts, the patented and public domain accessible language transcends reliance on local language and culture for truly universal communication and language. The system is even able to be incorporated into television systems to enable deaf blind persons to “watch” television. This innovation is a true catalyst of inclusion;
bringing access and widening communication channels to a population often seeking solutions for basics.

Signtel’s Internet Address Expander for the Visually Challenged

The president of North Haven, Connecticut-based Signtel since 2000, Raanan Liebermann grew the startup into a successful company with more than 200 employees. Raanan Liebermann leads the firm in the development of innovative products for deaf and blind people, among which is an Internet address expander.

Typically, computer users view website addresses in the Universal Resource Locator (URL) window. However, the URL appearing in a small window space can be difficult to read for individuals who are visually challenged. Signtel’s Internet address expander utilizes patented technology to expand the URL window quickly and conveniently, requiring just a single right mouse click. While other software products might magnify the display of an entire Internet page, Signtel’s product focuses on just a magnified URL window.

After the user enters a web address and hits “enter” or “go”, the user is directed to the website and the screen size returns to normal. Ideally, Internet browser manufacturers can incorporate the Signtel Internet address expander into their browser software.

Critical Tactics Employed in Hostage Negotiation

Raanan Liebermann holds a Ph.D. from the University of Oxford and is the president of Signtel, Inc., an organization focused on researching and developing innovative products that use artificial intelligence to assist people who suffer from hearing and sight impairment. Raanan Liebermann was also recognized in the city of New Haven for establishing the New Haven Police Stress Unit and the New Haven Hostage Negotiation team, under the collaborative support of then Chief Edward Morrone and Chief William Farrell. Dr. Raanan Liebermann who trained the officers teams members ran the New Haven Police Stress Unit and the New Haven Hostage Negotiation Team for a decade as a contribution to his community.

Effective hostage negation is useful during dangerous and tense standoffs and requires the use of specific techniques to encourage a hostage-taker to negotiate and agree to a solution that results in the least amount of damage possible. To negotiate successfully, the perspective of the suspect must try to be understood along with his weaknesses and strengths.

During hostage negotiations, the hostage-taker must be listened to and not interrupted or disagreed with as he speaks, though what he says can be acknowledged. He should be encouraged to talk by asking him open-ended questions, not by arguing with him or provoking him. While speaking to the hostage-taker, the negotiator should pause to influence his behavior. Pausing is intended to have the beneficial effects of encouraging the hostage-taker to continue conversing about the situation and to help diffuse an emotional situation. Being empathetic to the hostage-taker also helps to calm him, as does mirroring what he says by paraphrasing his words back to him to causes him to think about what he has said.

Such techniques proved themselves many times, such as in the case where the hostage-taker who was a paranoid- schizophrenic, and took hostage all members of his support group session at the Connecticut Mental Health Center in New Haven, CT, which was resolved when the hostage-taker, though being a paranoid, gave his gun to one of the hostages and walked out of the room to the awaiting swat team, without any incidence.

The Signtel Interpreter by Signtel, Inc.

Sign Language teacher
Photo by mentatdgt from Pexels

A Ph.D. in physics from the University of Oxford in England, Raanan Liebermann was the researcher responsible for solving the longstanding mystery of the Pulsar radio emission. Raanan Liebermann works as the president and chief of technology for Signtel, Inc., a company based in North Haven, Connecticut, researching and developing products for deaf, blind, and both deaf and blind persons, utilizing artificial intelligence. Signtel, Inc., was established in 2000 with a mission to develop and bring to market innovative assistive devices and assistive technology to serve the deaf, hard of hearing, visually impaired, blind, deaf-blind and deaf low-vision communities. The company's employees have been essential to the development of assistive device technologies such as the Signtel Interpreter (SI), Sign Language e-book, Inclusive Emergency Alert System, and the Electronic Cane for the blind and deaf and blind (e-Cane). The SI translates speech and written texts into sign language, with a comprehensive dictionary engine that recognizes and translates over 30,000 English words and 1,400 English idioms and phrases. This software is unique, with seamless connectivity between signs, a feature that was patented by Signtel in 2010. Among the people who developed the SI technology culminating in the software were over 100 deaf and blind assistant product developers, professional sign language interpreters and instructors, sign language linguists, and adult hearing children of deaf parents.