Raising the bar for deaf interpreters

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Steve Young figures he’s been present at more than 350 births. He’s not a doctor or a nurse, however. For more than 20 years, Young has worked as a deaf interpreter, serving as a link between those who speak English and those who speak the mainstream language of the deaf: American Sign Language.

Attending births is just one type of assignment for deaf interpreters such as Young, who work in forums ranging from corporate boardrooms to college and public school classrooms, and in settings varying from one-on-one marriage counseling sessions to city council meetings.

For the past year, Young has taught a new American Sign Language course at Des Moines Area Community College’s main campus in Ankeny, a program he developed while working as an interpreter at DMACC. Now, he’s working with administrators on a plan to launch a deaf interpreter training program within the next two years. Last November, the college was awarded a $400,000 federal grant to start an interpreter program, which would be the only such training program in Central Iowa and just the fourth in the state.

The effort comes as the industry is becoming more regulated in Iowa. Last year, the Legislature passed a bill that requires deaf interpreters to become licensed, a measure that becomes effective July 1. Additionally, one of the national certifying agencies for interpreters, the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf, passed a resolution last year that all interpreters by 2010 must have a minimum of a bachelor’s degree to take the national certification exam.

These are steps toward raising the bar for what is still a fledgling profession, said Young, who said only a small percentage of those who represent themselves as interpreters in Iowa are actually professionally competent.

“My goal here with this first $400,000 is to not do very much but to explore the options of creating a deaf interpreting program,” said Young, who noted that DMACC had requested $3.5 million toward the project, which has a total estimated cost of $4 million. “We will build a classroom that will be dedicated to interpreting, if we can get this program off the ground.”

The DMACC interpreting program will be modeled after the standards of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, a leading program that’s based in Rochester, N.Y. That high-tech program uses videotaping labs and real-time video monitors for students. Within the next two years, Young hopes to have four instructors hired, as well as get classroom space renovated with the special videotaping technology needed.

“My vision of this is to be one of the premier interpreting programs in the nation,” Young said.

Though interpreters are in high demand, trained, certified interpreters are in short supply nationally, and Iowa is no exception. There are probably fewer than 25 nationally certified deaf interpreters in the state, said Diana Kautzky, owner of Deaf Services Unlimited. The Des Moines-based company provides interpreting services on a business-to-business basis to companies throughout Iowa as well as in surrounding states.

Under the provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which went into effect in 1991, any business or organization must be able to accommodate a deaf person with an interpreter when requested, and that has kept interpreters in high demand, Kautzky said. Her company, which employs six full-time interpreters and contracts with about 35 others, schedules between 300 and 400 interpreting appointments each month and serves between 800 and 1,200 companies on a regular basis.

“The demand is everywhere,” said Kautzky, who prior to starting her own company nine years ago served as administrator of the Deaf Services Commission of Iowa. Currently, interpreter programs are offered through Iowa Western Community College in Council Bluffs, Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids and at Scott Community College in Bettendorf. Having a training program in Central Iowa will be beneficial on several levels, she said.

“A lot of times for people, relocating to get into a program isn’t a possibility, so by having it here it will create more opportunities,” she said. “And some people who may not have considered this as a profession will do so. And that (program) will be the foundation for more people becoming certified, which is the ultimate goal.”

The four levels of the basic American Sign Language courses offered at DMACC have proved popular; the first class had a waiting list of more than 450 students, and each section offered fills up with an average of 15 students in each of the four levels that are now offered, Young said.

“The interesting thing about that, every semester I’ll usually have one to three deaf people taking my class so they can learn the language and talk to other deaf people,” he said. That’s happening because deaf children are increasingly being “mainstreamed” into the school district rather than attending deaf schools, Young said. The result is that they are learning codes such as Signed English rather than American Sign Language, and consequently can’t communicate with older members of the deaf community who use American Sign Language, he said.

In Signed English, a sign is executed for every word in a sentence; American Sign Language seeks to convey concepts. For instance, to say, “I have two brothers,” an interpreter would make the signs for “two” and “brother” and then point to himself to convey the thought, “two brothers, me.”

Interest in an interpreter training program has also come from the Des Greater Moines business community, Young said.

“I get a lot of phone calls about (establishing) an interpreting program,” he said. “One of the things that comes up quite often from business people when they call is they say, ‘Please teach American Sign Language (to interpreters) so that they can talk to the deaf people in the community.’”

Both Young and Kautzky entered the profession because each has a family member who is deaf. Similarly, some of the students taking the American Sign Language courses at DMACC sign up because of that connection.

Jordan Miller, who just graduated from DMACC with a commercial art degree, began the summer course last week in part because his sister is deaf. He said he realizes the degree of difficulty it takes to learn even basic signing.

“My parents took a class when my sister was 5,” he said. “It was an eight-week class, three times a week. By the time they were done, she as a 5-year-old said they were too slow. So they never really learned it either, other than the basic sign language, so I never had a reason to. Other than a few basic signs, I didn’t learn anything else.”

The course also fills a foreign language requirement for entering Iowa State University, he said.

“I figured, what can I lose?” Miller said. “I know quite a few people who are deaf or partially deaf. I figured it might be fun, even if I didn’t learn anything, or it might help me out in the future.”

Young said from his experience, aptitude plays a large part in whether a person can acquire the skills needed to become a successful interpreter.

“Some people, even if their hearts are into it, they’re never going to be able to talk to a deaf person beyond, ‘Do you want coffee?’” he said.

Though it varies greatly depending upon the individual, it typically takes at least five years for a person to reach the proficiency to become certified as an interpreter, Kautzky said. Salaries for full-time interpreters begin at about $30,000 and can reach as high as $75,000 to $80,000 per year.

“It’s a great field to get into,” she said. “You’re actually stepping into the lives of people at all stages, from babies being born to attending alcohol treatment programs to standing next to a presidential candidate.”

As of July 1, interpreters who wish to work in Iowa will be required to apply for a license, and within the next two years will have to attain at least one level of national certification to be licensed.

“So we’re anticipating that more and more people will be pursuing their certification,” said Kautzky, who serves on the newly established state licensing board for interpreters. “I think it’s going to be a very good move for the state of Iowa in that we will have a way to verify that a person is qualified to be an interpreter. It’s going very smoothly, and because there’s a two-year window, there will be time for people to get their certification.”