Join Public Television's ARTHUR, on a Communication Adventure
New episode and nationwide outreach initiative helps
hearing and sighted kids learn about
other ways people communicate.
This season America's favorite aardvark is focusing on
communication differences both on and
off the small screen. A new episode, "Prunella Sees
the Light," and its companion ARTHUR's Communication
Adventure educational outreach
initiative encourage kids who are hearing and sighted to become
more aware of the different ways their peers who are
blind, visually impaired, deaf, or
hard of hearing learn, play, and enjoy many of the same
things they do.
In "Prunella Sees the Light," premiering Thanksgiving Day,
Thursday, November 28 (check local
listings), Prunella learns that her worries about
protecting Marina, her friend who is blind, are more
about her own
perceptions than about Marina's actual capabilities. Marina was
introduced in last season's "Prunella's
Special Edition," an episode that led the
American Council of the Blind to award ARTHUR the Vernon
Henley Award. This award is presented
to a person who has made a positive difference in the
media, helping the public recognize the capabilities of
people who are blind, rather than
focusing on outdated stereotypes and misconceptions.
Building off of this and other themes presented in "Prunella
Sees the Light" is a new ARTHUR
communications awareness outreach initiative. This
initiative seeks to create awareness about the many ways
people communicate, explore how to
make communication accessible and inclusive of all, and
promote positive attitudes about accessibility and universal
design. The centerpiece of the
outreach initiative is Arthur's Communication Adventure:
Exploring Inclusion and Accessibility, a free 16-page
teacher guide that gets second grade
students in mainstream classrooms.
To obtain a copy of the guide, write
to:
WGBH, Educational Programming and Outreach, 125 WesternAvenue,
Boston MA 02134; fax 617-300-1040; e-mail
WGBH_Materials_Request@wgbh.org;
or download a copy from the "Grown-Ups"
section of the ARTHUR Web site at
http://www.pbskids.org/arthur/grownups/teacherguides.
Finally, public television stations nationwide are being
encouraged to host their own ARTHUR's
Communication Adventure events. These customizable
events will be scheduled throughout the year, and can
range from a simple booth at a
membership event, to a large-scale fair that they co-host with a
local community organization.
ARTHUR is committed to making quality television accessible to
all children. Since its premiere in
1996, the series has been
closed-captioned for viewers who are
deaf or hard-of-hearing. Thanks to a grant by the
Department of Education, ARTHUR is now the only program
on television to have both standard
and edited captions (for young
children with hearing loss who are not
yet fluent readers). ARTHUR also made history in
1997 when the series became the
first daily program described for viewers who are blind or
visually impaired. Every ARTHUR
episode is closed captioned and described by
the Media Access Group at WGBH.
The series' Web site at
http://www.pbskids.org/arthur is
also accessible to blind and visually
impaired ARTHUR fans with descriptions
available for some visual elements.
Funding for closed captioning of ARTHUR
is provided by WGBH and by the U.S.
Department of Education. Description funding is provided
by WGBH.
Based on Marc Brown's best-selling books, ARTHUR is one of the
most watched children's television
programs, with almost 11.5 million weekly
viewers overall (Source: NTI September 2001through July
2002). ARTHUR has
won numerous awards, including the George Foster Peabody
Award and four Daytime Emmys-
three in the Outstanding Children's Animated Program
category.
ARTHUR is produced for PBS by WGBH Boston and CINAR Corporation.
Executive producers are Carol
Greenwald (WGBH) and Andrew Porporino (CINAR). The
award-winning ARTHUR Web site is
http://www.pbskids.org/arthur. Funding
for ARTHUR is provided by a
Ready-To-Learn Television Cooperative
Agreement from the U.S. Department of
Education through the Public Broadcasting Service,
the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting, and public television viewers.
Corporate funding is provided by Libby's,
Juicy Juice,, Post, Alpha-Bits,
Cereal, and Chuck E. Cheese's,.
WGBH Boston is America's preeminent public broadcasting
producer, the source of nearly
one-third of PBS's prime-time lineup
and companion online content as well
as many public radio favorites. WGBH is a pioneer in
educational multimedia (including the Web, broadband, and
interactive television) and in
technologies and services that make
media accessible for people with
disabilities. WGBH has been recognized with hundreds
of honors: Emmys, Peabodys,
duPont-Columbia Awards, even two
Oscars. In 2002, WGBH was honored with
a special institutional Peabody Award for 50 years of
excellence. For more information visit
http://www.wgbh.org.
CINAR Corporation is an integrated entertainment and education
company involved in the development,
production, post-production, and worldwide
distribution of non-violent, quality programming and
educational products
for children, families, and educators worldwide. CINAR's
Web site is
http://www.cinar.com.
