Oral Deaf Interpreters?

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sablesmist

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What exactly do oral deaf interpreters do? I read a story about one recently & do they do repeat what they hear to the lipreading person...?
 
I'm not officially trained in oral interpreting but I have done some as necessary. In my situation, the client was an excellent lipreader and had some hearing but did not sign. I sat right in front of her, fairly close, and mouthed what was said not quite word for word. Sometimes words get simplified (linguistically, not conceptually) or combined in order to make it easier to lipread. I exaggerated my mouthing to some extent but not enormously, pretty much the way you'd speak to any deaf person who's skilled at lipreading. Also I added more facial expression to get the point across.

Again, this was specific to one client so I may be leaving out aspects that I didn't know about, since this was the setup that worked well for her.
 
I am oral, but use finger spelling. I do a little oral interpreting for a latened deaf aide. she does not understand ASL and I have to read the signs then translate into both oral and finger spelling.
 
What Interpretrator describes has been my experience with oral interpreting; although I think there are some people who just do oral, I've never had OI that wasn't done by an ASL interpreter. (Which is actually how I first learned to sign ...)

But I'm not sure that's what you asked about - are you asking about whether there are oral deaf people who work as interpreters?
 
I must say.....I find it ironic that oral deaf interpreters even exist. One reason given by hearing parents as to why they want their kids to have oral skills, is so that they don't have to depend on a 'terp. So how is depending on an oral 'terp or other "oral" accomondations any different?
 
Less reliance on interpreters is not the same as never needing one, though I agree that it's a bit of a bogus reason. I would point out, however, that OI can often give you a much more direct message than ASL, depending on how well you lip read and how good the interpreter is.
 
deafdyke said:
I must say.....I find it ironic that oral deaf interpreters even exist. One reason given by hearing parents as to why they want their kids to have oral skills, is so that they don't have to depend on a 'terp. So how is depending on an oral 'terp or other "oral" accomondations any different?
Click to expand...

Good point and one I have never really thought of!!!!! I love that one!

Yea, I used oral terps back when I was starting out in college. It hurted my eyes so much so I would space out on them and only rely on them when the teachers gives instructions to the class otherwise I was in dreamland. Once I started learning ASL and understood it enough receptively, I immediately requested ASL terps...oooh a HUGE difference for me and the lectures became more interesting!
 
deafdyke said:
I must say.....I find it ironic that oral deaf interpreters even exist. One reason given by hearing parents as to why they want their kids to have oral skills, is so that they don't have to depend on a 'terp. So how is depending on an oral 'terp or other "oral" accomondations any different?
Click to expand...

I don't know if my client was late-deafened (my guess is yes), but she was somewhat older (late 40s to early 50s probably) and lived perfectly comfortably with HAs and excellent lipreading skills. It just so happened that for meetings and classes and so forth, she needed extra help. I don't know that she made a conscious choice not to join Deaf culture so much as she really never knew much about it.

There's all kinds of people in the world and all kinds of reasons for using all kinds of accommodations. Getting judgmental about it does not help anyone.
 
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