A dear friend (actually sibling) takes off in her camper almost every year to travel the back roads and explore the USA. She has been deaf since the age of two. This often brings up questions. The most common? “How does she hear sirens?” or “How would she hear a horn honking?” The answer? Her attention to visual clues is acute. Unlike hearing drivers, she is not easily distracted by noises that surround us on the road. How interesting to learn about deaf big-rig drivers. One such driver is named Suzie. When Suzie Helgerson, 54, drives down the highway in her big rig, she sees emergency v ..read more

California Assembly Bill 5 or AB 5 is a state statute that codifies into law a landmark Supreme Court of California case, Dynamex Operations West, Inc. vs. The Superior Court of Los Angeles County, and which holds that most workers are employees, ought to be classified as such, and the burden of proof for classifying individuals as independent contractors belongs to the hiring entity. AB5 entitles workers classified as employees to greater labor protections, such as minimum wage laws, sick leave, and unemployment and workers’ compensation benefits, whic ..read more

(excerpts from an article by Sarah Katz – Nov.7, 2019) I’ve always felt like the object of a constant tug of war between the deaf and the hearing communities. “Your whole life, they’ve been trying to take you away from me,” my father says to me, referring to the deaf community. But the deaf community could just as easily say the same about my father. More than 90 percent of deaf and hard-of-hearing children are born to hearing parents like mine, who have little to no experience interacting with deaf people. When it was discovered that I was profoundly deaf at six weeks old, my parents faced a ..read more

On September 11, 2019, the California State Senate voted to pass gig-worker bill AB5 without an exemption for translators and interpreters. Final vote was 26 to 11 and AB5 has now been signed by California Governor Gavin Newsom. The bill kicks in January 1, 2020. AB5 or “Worker status: employees and independent contractors,” clarifies the definition of what a contractor is under California law. It is based on the State Supreme Court’s Dynamex ruling, which defines an independent contractor by the ABC test. This means any California employer who wants to treat a person as a contractor mu ..read more

    As an agency, we often get requests from those who believe sign language interpreters probably picked up an extra class at a community college, or maybe they have a deaf relative, or thought they were mostly “volunteers”. We really should have a perfect response recorded so we can just hit the play button. Of the many skills required to interpret communication, one is the ability to translate idioms ‘on the fly’.  The same interpretation skills are required in communications between English and ASL. This comes as a surprise to many. Hearing people have become used to phrases that li ..read more

An Interpreter’s Balancing Act: Sign language interpreters. What do they do? For those unfamiliar, it may seem pretty simple…similar to the work of foreign language interpreters. However, there are issues particular to this profession that only come to light when one looks deeper. Foreign Language Interpreters are interpreting one spoken language to another. The vast majority of the time, the language they are interpreting is much the same regardless of assignment. There may be medical or legal jargon that is unfamiliar , but every day conversations are based on the same basic forei ..read more

You may be familiar with the Deaf community in the United States, but what do we know about the Deaf community around the world? Are there different forms of sign language? What about schools and services? Jamie Berke has reported on international deaf communities in countries ranging from Argentina to South Africa. Deaf people in other countries have their own sign languages, cultures, and organizations. This is not a complete list, but rather some examples of what we know of the deaf community in other countries. Africa We know little about many areas of Africa, but those which are c ..read more

Research indicates how teaching sign language to babies produces positive results even as they enter into their elementary school years. Although little research has been done on baby signing, the research that has been conducted is very positive (Goodwyn & Acredolo, 2000). It has been shown that baby signing can be beneficial for cognitive and emotional behaviors in infants (Goodwyn & Acredolo, 2000). Goodwyn and Acredolo’s study (2000) consisted of 103, 11 month old babies…divided into two groups…the sign training group and the non-intervention group (control group). Results ..read more

Don’t Sign That!! Recently, after reading a conversation among sign language interpreters, I was reminded of a dramatic episode tucked away in my memory banks. Some memories stick with us long past their expiration date. In a group discussion, an interpreter asked about signing lyrics to rap songs and hip-hop songs that likely include language deemed taboo by many. Some interpreters felt the question was inappropriate. Some felt a Caucasian interpreter should not be interpreting songs by Black artists. Emotional responses became a bit heated and the interpreter who initially asked the q ..read more

Interesting Suggested Terminology from our Canadian Neighbors The issue What are the “proper” terms and definition to be used in regard to deafness? CAD-ASC’s position The Deaf, the deafened, and the hard of hearing are all very distinct groups. Using the proper terminology shows respect for their differences. deaf: A medical/audiological term referring to those people who have little or no functional hearing. May also be used as a collective noun (“the deaf”) to refer to people who are medically deaf but who do not necessarily identify with the Deaf community. Deaf (with capital ..read more