Auditory skill requirements for transcriber candidates

It's very important that a TypeWell training candidate have strong short-term memory and good listening and English comprehension skills. Accurately remembering and recalling all the details just heard is fundamental to the work of a real-time transcriber. A TypeWell student must be able to hold in his/her mind the words and meaning heard, without changing or reducing the speaker's intended message.

Having good listening skills also means that the TypeWell student is able to hear people who might not be talking too clearly, or when there's some other noise in the room. If the student can't hear well, he or she won't be able to transcribe classes and meetings in a real-life environment, no matter how fast he or she types.

The TypeWell student also needs to process auditory English as effortlessly as a well-educated native English speaker. Those with any trouble understanding high-speed, spoken, complex English lectures can't do this job well enough to provide adequate information to the deaf reader. The TypeWell student will not only need to understand literal English rapidly, but must be able to understand the implied meaning of what was said and be able to restate it with rich detail, quickly and accurately.