Coverage Area

Your Community Benefits When You Learn Sign Language

Last Updated on Saturday, 17 July 2010 22:21 Written by Daryl Crouse Saturday, 17 July 2010 22:07

Every person in every walk of life has the need to know some sign language, even if you are not going to use that skill on a daily basis. For example, doctors, nurses, teachers, law enforcement, retail workers, and government employees are constantly frustrated with their inability to communicate with those who cannot hear because of their lack in ability to use sign language.

When you learn sign language online, your signing skills will increase your ability to communicate with a class of people that you can no longer afford to ignore. Police officers, retailers, and all aspects of society need to reach out to those who are deaf, to better serve the entire community, and not just certain parts of it.

This website is designed to help every individual learn sign language online – at his or her own pace. Make it fun. Learn with a friend, or from your desk at home, office, or wherever a computer is available. Learn about the deaf community and their language as you become more confident at communicating with deaf individuals at work, school, or in social settings.

The internet has made it easy to learn sign language online. The site is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Each learner can access the entire site at his or her convenience. New lessons are added weekly. There is a section called, “News and Tips” that is updated periodically with various subjects and topics.

Remember this: When you learn sign language online, education takes place at your convenience from your home, office, or elsewhere. Many of our subscribers have written emails telling how they will invite friends over and learn sign language online together. Make learning this new language fun. Be creative! Have sign language gatherings where everyone has to use sign language and no spoken language is used. Create stories with all participants sitting in a circle and each individual adds a new sign at his or her turn. The more you use the language, the better and faster you will grow.

Join this exciting new website and see how quickly you can learn sign language online. It will broaden your knowledge of world languages, while satisfying your desire to learn this wonderful and powerful language.

• For all ages
• 24/7 accessibility
• Themed lessons
• Video formatted throughout
• Retention exercises and activities
• Individualized progress chart
• 7,000 + video dictionary
• Group rates available upon request
• $14.99 a month – no obligation
• Self-paced
• Customizable features
• Introduction to Deaf culture
• ASL grammar and structure
• Multiple meaning words and concepts
• Synonyms

Lawsuit: California fails to accommodate deaf workers

Written by BROOKE DONALD (AP) Sunday, 23 May 2010 05:54

Deaf and hard-of-hearing state employees in California are regularly denied sign language interpreters for meetings and have been left behind during emergency evacuations because of a failure to accommodate their disability, according to a lawsuit filed Friday.

"Our investigation reveals a systemic breakdown," said Joshua Konecky, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. "Deaf employees describe a haphazard and patchwork environment for requesting and securing accommodations, if they get them at all."

The problems have resulted in workplace "isolation, exclusion, prejudice and overall pervasive discrimination," the suit says.

The lawsuit filed in San Francisco Superior Court cites problems at the Department of Rehabilitation, Department of Justice, California Public Employees Retirement System and Department of Social Services.

It seeks class action status and includes seven named plaintiffs, including a woman who works in the Office of Deaf Access for the Department of Social Services.

There are about 1,500 state workers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing.

Rachel Arrezola, a spokeswoman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a defendant in the case, said the state is committed to accommodating disabled employees to ensure they are able to fulfill their job responsibilities.

"We are always looking for ways to improve access and the Department of Rehabilitation will continue to work with these individuals and their representatives, and we are hopeful this will be resolved soon," Arrezola said.

Evan Westrup, a spokesman for Attorney General Jerry Brown, said his office was reviewing the lawsuit and could not immediately comment.

The lawsuit alleges the state has violated the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

It claims deaf employees are often denied sign language interpreters for work-related events, including staff meetings, job training, performance reviews and meetings with the public and clients.

It also says the state frequently substitutes insufficient or ineffective forms of communication — lip reading, e-mail, videophones and interpretations by co-workers unskilled in sign language — rather than provide qualified interpreters.

The state often fails to caption videos shown to employees and cites budget limitations as a reason for denying interpreter requests, the lawsuit states.

"On paper, the state recognizes the need for sign language interpreters and other forms of reasonable accommodations, but in practice, the state has no reliable systems in place to ensure that its deaf employees have effective communication with their clients, co-workers and management," said Laurence Paradis, executive director of Disability Rights Advocates and a lawyer for the plaintiffs.

The lawsuit seeks improvements to state procedures and attorney fees.

Paradis said inadequate emergency procedures are the most disturbing example of the state's failure to accommodate deaf employees.

"We have had numerous reports of employees being left behind in buildings during evacuation drills and actual emergencies," he said.

State employee Melanie Thao Nguyen said her ability to serve the deaf community is hampered by the state's failure to provide her with sufficient interpreters in her position as associate governmental program analyst at the Office of Deaf Access.

The lawsuit claims the interpreting position at her workplace has been vacant for more than three years, and no one is due to be hired because funds had dried up.

New Joint Commission Standard Defines Medical Interpreters

Written by Heather Comak, for HealthLeaders Media Saturday, 08 May 2010 10:28

One of the most vital parts of providing adequate healthcare is the exchange of information between patient and caregiver. Without clear communication, it can be difficult, and even dangerous, to treat a patient.

For patients who have limited English proficiency (LEP), as well as providers, the presence of a medical interpreter can allay fears about care. Most importantly, using a qualified medical interpreter to assist with communication keeps patients safe.

Until recently, however, there has been no national standard by which to evaluate medical interpreters. Even national requirements on the part of hospital accreditors were lax. In January 2010, however, The Joint Commission released new standards concerning patient-provider communication, that will be implemented no sooner than January 1, 2011. One standard specifically will address qualifications for language interpreters and translators.

Certification opportunities are opening up as well. In October 2009, the National Board of Certification for Medical Interpreters (NBCMI) launched the National Medical Interpreter Certification and hopes to have the first 500 interpreters certified by June. The certification helps define a qualified, proficient medical interpreter.

"The fact that diversity is a national issue, it really does need a national response," says Louis F. Provenzano, Jr., president and chief operating officer of Language Line Services in Monterey, CA. "There hasn't actually been, up until we launched, a single industry-wide standard for training, education, and evaluation of medical interpreters."

Language Line University, along with the International Medical Interpreters Association (IMIA), was a founding board member of the NBCMI.

In addition, the Certification Commission for Healthcare Interpreters (CCHI) will launch its own separate certification for medical interpreters. CCHI expects its first certification exams to be available in the fall. CCHI's process for establishing a certification has been similar to that of the NBCMI.

These certification opportunities for the estimated 15,000 to 17,000 medical interpreters will bring the field up to par with their court interpreter and sign language interpreter counterparts. It will also provide a national standard in the face of many dozens of smaller certificate programs available that do not have one defined level of achievement.

The need for qualified medical interpreters
As the link between an LEP patient and his or her physician, nurse, or other care provider, the medical interpreter has long had a place at the patient's bedside or patient procedure. However, in the past, the interpreter might have been the only person without a credential.

"In healthcare, credentials are very important—not only for professionalization, but for patient safety's sake," says Izabel Arocha, MEd, president of the IMIA. "What we've seen in all these years is that in an operating room, they might be doing a catheterization with all sorts of professionals there that are credentialed according to their specific boards, except for the medical interpreter, who's always been the missing link, the one individual who has been completely unregulated."

There have been a few highly publicized incidents of medical interpretation gone wrong, one being the 1980 case of Willie Ramirez, a Spanish-speaking teenager from southern Florida. Ramirez reported feeling dizzy and having a headache—the result of an intracerebellar hemorrhage—to doctors at an area hospital.

However, because, among other reasons, he and his family insisted he was intoxicado, his original ailment was diagnosed as an intentional drug overdose. The word intoxicado in Spanish, however, can mean feeling dizzy or nauseous. Ramirez became a quadriplegic as the result of the misdiagnosis.

This case is often referred to as one example of the need to have qualified medical interpreters available in the hospital. It is also a federal requirement. Hospitals that accept federal funding are required to comply with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin. This includes providing a translator for those patients who are not proficient in English.

Similarly, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which protects the rights of individuals with disabilities, requires healthcare organizations that receive federal funds to provide effective communication for patients who are deaf or hard of hearing.

Many hospitals subscribe to a telephone interpreting service because of the many languages for which they may have to be responsible. Similarly, because of the lack of one national standard, many facilities had to rely on bilingual staff members who could serve as an interpreter in addition to their normal duties—and many still do.

"What many people don't understand is that in order to be a professional, you have to accurately and completely interpret what has been said," says Marc Friedman, interpreter coordinator at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, TN. "People who are not practiced in the profession are not accustomed to capturing what has been said."

In addition, the practice of using children as interpreters for their parents or relatives is not only dangerous because of the potential lack of understanding of what the patient has said, but because of the situation in which the child is placed.

A great deal of research has been conducted on the link between language proficiency and adverse events. Joint Commission researchers, funded by The Commonwealth Fund, found that LEP patients were more likely to experience an adverse event than English-speaking patients.

"Language Proficiency and Adverse Events in U.S. Hospitals: A Pilot Study," which was published in the International Journal for Quality in Healthcare in 2007, found that more communication-related adverse events were reported for LEP patients than English-speaking patients.

Certification will change the field
The NBCMI's certification has been developed by a 12-member board and is administered by PSI, a national testing agency. The test comprises a written and oral exam. In this way, the NBCMI is following the National Commission for Certifying Agencies' accreditation guidelines and hopes to become accredited by 2011.

"Unless we have a regulated profession, we're not going to change healthcare quality in this country," says Arocha. "It affects all of the other services. If the provider and specialist is going to be accountable for that patient, they need to know what that patient is saying."