Parent needs information please.

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Teacher35

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I am a special Ed/regular Ed teacher. I have a 1/3 class of deaf/hoh students and 2/3 typical students. They are 4 and 5 yrs old. Their last year was full of upheaval when the deaf Ed teacher died and they had subs with no training from dec. to the end of the year. This yr. they have a gen Ed teacher, teacher of the deaf, and an interpreter. The interpreter understands development. The teacher of the deaf insists we must change interpreters every grading period. I feel they need the consistency of the same people as their world was so rocked last year. What is the right thing in this case? Thanks so much!
 
I am deaf one but I have special needs daughter so I have a little bit of understanding..Personally I be furious IF I was a parent why is it not possible for parents to confront him..Is any kids parents deaf if so I have word with them they have best insight
 
I would keep the certified and talented interpreter for my child for a year.
 
I am a teacher of the deaf. I would keep the same certified interpreter too.
 
Teacher35 said:
I am a special Ed/regular Ed teacher. I have a 1/3 class of deaf/hoh students and 2/3 typical students. They are 4 and 5 yrs old. Their last year was full of upheaval when the deaf Ed teacher died and they had subs with no training from dec. to the end of the year. This yr. they have a gen Ed teacher, teacher of the deaf, and an interpreter. The interpreter understands development. The teacher of the deaf insists we must change interpreters every grading period. I feel they need the consistency of the same people as their world was so rocked last year. What is the right thing in this case? Thanks so much!
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The teacher of the deaf must be nuts! Consistency and normalcy is what is needed, especially with 4 and 5 year olds!
 
In their younger years, consistency is most important (as long as it's "good" consistence).

In upper grades, students should be exposed to more variety in signers and interpreters, to prepare for real-world communication experiences. Again, the language models they have at school should be top notch.
 
I have a deaf daughter who is 10, and several times the old district we lived in tried to get her pulled and put in gen ed with a translator. I understand that's not part of the question here, but me personally, I just can't see putting her somewhere she can't directly communicate and learn from her teacher. That being said, if I HAD to have her with a translator and no other choice, I would insist that it be the same person so that she could build a sense of rapport and trust from them, because the child will essentially be learning from the translator largely, who has to explain things to them in their language.
 
Forget about whether they're Deaf, would you want the communication style/accent/colloquialisms to change for a 4-5 year old every marking period? OMG, consistency and predictability are important for that age group.
 
I think these children would prefer to keep the same interpreter for the rest of their education years. Especially the interpreter that these children are comfortable with the most, only one interpreter means that both the children and the interpreter can build relationship with each others then both side of the party would feel more comfortable with each others where this can help the children to understand the interpreter more comfortably. I had different interpreters, I protested once wanting to keep one of my interpreter only Delores because I felt the right connection with her when I couldn't find any connection with the other interpreters which that somewhat made me struggles with my education because each interpreters have a different personalities along with their different style in how they use American Sign Language. But that is my opinion though and my journey as well.

But if there is a option to have a teacher that have certification in American Sign Language as interpreter then I'd take that opportunity in a heartbeat over different interpreters for each periods or whatever because sometimes a certificated interpreter that is not a teacher could make a mistake in interpretation from what a teacher is saying as that happened to me before. But if there is no teacher who can sign then I'd choose ONLY one interpreter throughout my education years instead of having a different interpreters for each period.
 
Mod note:

Two threads has been merged and one post moved here from 3rd thread.
 
Thinking back to when I was that age, I think changing interpreters would have been confusing for me. I, too was in a class that was partly deaf and partly hearing. We had 2 teachers, one that spoke (hearing) and while the other was also hearing, she signed and worked with us. This was Kindergarten. Prior to that I had 3 years of preschool with a (hearing) teacher for the deaf, and it was the same teacher all 3 years.

(I used deaf and not Deaf in this case because I don't think I identified with bring Deaf at that age. Just me, personally.)
 
I never had ASL interpreters in elementary, not in high school either in the old days back in 1950 and 1960.

But in mainstream schools for today, it would be a good idea to have two interpreters for the whole day of class in elementary like Special Ed or Deaf Ed and two ASL interpreters for all day in mainstream high schools, too. One hour of each class time would be proper so not to over tire working with Deaf students. You don't want to burn out the ASL interpreter all day in one class (elementary) or several classes (high school). It is true that we can pick the right ASL interpreter that we are used to be comfortable with the ASL interpreter(s).

I was frustrated a lot in the oral only mainstream schools with deaf/hard of hearing students. We did not like it at all.
 
The deaf ed teacher doesnt have a clue....
Keep the qualified terp!!!
 
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