#whyISignPTASL with Kelly Monahan10/4/2017
Video description:
Kerry (a female with long brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, wearing a short sleeved black shirt) is sitting in front of a black background and is signing into the camera. Video transcript: Hello! I'm Kelly. My sign name is a K that moves over top of my arm, and is modified for PTASL where the K actually touches my arm. I'm Chicago. I'm DeafBlind. I'm a mother, an ASL instructor, and I also host various DeafBlind events such as, DeafBlind cruises, community events, and ProTactile Happy Hour (PTHH). I love PTASL, because I don't miss any part of the communication, or anything that a person is doing. So, for example, if a person is laughing, they can indicate that to me through touch, with what's called a "claw handshape". Being able to touch my body to show that they are laughing, I can feel that. Or, if they take my hand and put it to their vocal cords, I can feel them actually laughing. So, I'm not missing out on what's going on. That's why I love PTASL! (Video transcript and description also available for download as an accessible Word document) #WhyISignPTASL National Needs Assessment10/3/2017
The DeafBlind Interpreting National Training and Resource Center is conducting a national needs assessment survey to assist us in identifying current and emerging practices in the field of DeafBlind interpreting.
The goal of this survey is to identify specific competencies required for interpreters who work with DeafBlind consumers. The term DeafBlind will be used throughout the survey. For our survey purposes, the definition includes individuals who are DeafBlind, deaf-blind, and/or who have a combination of hearing and vision loss, those who are late-deafened with vision loss, hard of hearing with vision loss, close vision, or are oral deafblind. This survey will take about 20 minutes to complete, depending on your answers to some of the questions. You must answer the first question so we can know you have read and agree with the Consent information. The results of this survey will assist in determining the skills and competencies expected of DeafBlind interpreters. Please share the survey link widely as we are working to reach as many professionals who work with people who are DeafBlind as possible. The survey link is here: http://woutri.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_1RdibQTyoGC6t93 The survey will close on Sunday, October 15th at 11:59pm. Thank you! (Video transcript and description also available for download as an accessible Word document)
Video Description:
Roberto (Latino male, with short hair, black rimmed glasses, and wearing a dark button down, three-quarter length sleeve shirt) stands in front of a dark curtain and signs into the camera. Video Transcript: Hello! I'm Roberto. I am DeafBlind. I am a VR counselor and I teach American Sign Language. I work with DBI – The DeafBlind Interpreting National Training and Resource Center. We're about to send out a survey and we need your help. Are you DeafBlind, Deaf, hearing, sighted, hard of hearing, or low vision? If so, please fill this survey out. Do you work as an interpreter, an interpreter educator, or a VR counselor, or in some other field related to DeafBlind individuals? If so, please fill out this survey. It will only be available for a limited time, two weeks in fact. It will close October 13th, which is next Friday. Please be sure to fill it out before then. Thank you! #WhyISignPTASL with Carrie Biell9/27/2017
Video description:
Carrie (a female with shoulder length brown hair, wears a grey suit jacket over a flowered blouse) is sitting in front of a light background and is signing into the camera. Video transcript: Hello! I’m Carrie Biell. I’m from Seattle, Washington. I am hearing. I provide Vocational Rehabilitation services for the Department of Services for the Blind (DSB), in the state of Washington. My mother is DeafBlind so I’ve used PTASL my entire life. As I got older, I learned more about PTASLfrom other DeafBlind community members, and it has always been my preference to honor the DeafBlind community’s language. For me, PTASL is the most clear, direct way to communicate with DeafBlind individuals. It provides environmental information, and the grammatical markers typically found in facial expressions in ASL, all in one beautiful language. #WhyISignPTASL (Video transcript and description also available for download as an accessible Word document) #WhyISignPTASL DBI Wants YOUR #WhyISIgnPTASL Videos!9/13/2017
Video description:
CM (a female with shoulder length brown hair, wears a long sleeved black shirt) looks into the camera and signs. Video transcript: Hello! I am CM Hall. I'm the co-director for the DeafBlind Interpreting National Training and Resource Center (DBI) grant. Our goal is to train more interpreters who know and understand ProTactile American Sign Langauge (PTASL). We recognize that many DeafBlind people use PTASL, and we want to make sure interpreters are familiar with that language. This includes an understanding of how best to meet both cultural and linguistic needs. Part of our initiative is to raise awareness and understanding around the use of PTASL as a language, and the reasons people choose to use it. We need your help to get the word out. We would like to collect short videos addressing why you choose to use PTASL. There are specific items we would like you to address in your video. First, tell us your name. Second, tell us if you are Deaf, DeafBlind, hard of hearing, hearing, or sighted. Third, where do you live? Fourth, if you have a job, tell us more about where you work and what you do. Fifth, and we would like you to really open up and share on this one, tell us why you choose to use PTASL and what benefits you gain from its use. Why have you embraced this language and how have you taken it and made it your own? Last, please add the hashtag, #WhyISignPTASL to your video. That's all there is to it! Keep in mind, we want to keep these videos brief, because our goal is to share them on YouTube and Facebook, because our goal is to share them on YouTube and Facebook, to raise awareness, increase recognition, and to promote understanding of ProTactile ASL. If you are interested in helping us, and are willing to share a video, please email that video to hallcm@wou.edu when you have completed it. Thank you so much in advance! Touch you later! (Video transcript and description also available for download as an accessible Word document) #WhyISignPTASL #WhyISignPTASL with Chad Ludwig6/20/2017
Video description:
Chad (a male with short brown spiked hair, wears a short sleeved black polo shirt) stands in front of a bright blue background and signs into the camera. Video transcript: Hello everyone! I'm Chad Ludwig. I am Deaf and sighted. I live in Independence, Oregon. I am a freelance DeafBlind interpreter, and I volunteer as an advocate for the Deaf, DeafBlind, and Hard of Hearing community in Oregon. ProTactile American Sign Language (PTASL) is essential because it encompasses all of the visual information from American Sign Language and makes it available tactually on a person’s arms, legs, or other places on the body. With all of this information available, DeafBlind people are fully immersed in the conversation. Where historically there were gaps in the information they received, PTASL now provides a channel for them to be informed and included in every interaction. I have seen, first hand, the value of using PTASL in the community. The benefit is not only for the DeafBlind person, but also for me as an interpreter, and for others in the community. So, pass it on- #WhyISignPTASL. (Video transcript and description also available for download as an accessible Word document) #WhyISignPTASL #WhyISignPTASL with debra kahn6/14/2017
Video description:
Debra (a female with short brown hair, purple glasses, dangling earrings, a black shirt) sits in front of a green background and signs into the camera. Video transcript: Hello everyone! My name is Debra Kahn. I am DeafBlind. I live in Seattle, Washington. I’ve worked as the SSP Coordinator for the DeafBlind Service Center for the past two and a half years. I’ve personally received benefit from using PTASL when teaching, giving presentations, or training new SSPs. When I am presenting at a workshop, a PSSP stands beside me and provides access to the visual information that is going on around me in PTASL. For example, if there are hands raised in the audience, or other visual or environmental information that I might have otherwise missed, the PSSP provides that information to me in PTASL, tactually on my body. When I am in the middle of a conversation and another person approaches and touches my shoulder to indicate that they are there, I have the opportunity to check in to see who is joining the conversation and wants my attention. Maybe that person’s emotions come out through the use of facial expressions, laughter, a wide smile, or some other visual means. I am able to capture that information visually, but if I was fully blind, how would I be able to tell what the other person’s affect was or catch the other visual cues to know how the person was feeling. PTASL is the answer. It is the ultimate means to ensure full access to information. It really is slick. #WhyISignPTASL (Video transcript and description also available for download as an accessible Word document) #WhyISignPTASL I first volunteered at a weekend DeafBlind camp on the side of Mt. Hood near Sandy, Oregon in the fall of 1992. I remember having perhaps my first and only panic attack on the way up driving past snow. I was starting to freak out, thinking “I’ve only been studying sign language for a year! How am I going to guide or interpret with DeafBlind people in the snow?!” My friends calmed me down, and I made it through the weekend. All the DeafBlind people lived. I remember one moment during the weekend when I was matched with a DeafBlind senior citizen who was wearing overalls. They were announcing the winners of the costume contest and the person I was interpreting for won for Best Overall (people thought it meant, Best Overalls.” A more seasoned interpreter saw that I wasn’t getting the message across and asked if I needed help and he intervened. I was grateful because the goal of that man getting the message that he won was getting across more swiftly than I could have. After that weekend, I wasn’t sure volunteering in the DeafBlind community was right for me, but my friends and I returned the next spring to the weekend camp on the Oregon Coast. I think that was the camp that cemented my volunteerism as a passion for me. I had a lot of fun with other volunteers and met some pretty interesting and dynamic DeafBlind people too. I saw the magic that transpires when this community comes together and I was hooked. From there, I sought out an interpreting internship with more opportunity to be in the DeafBlind community in the Bay Area. I continued to volunteer at the Oregon camps through the mid 1990’s until money ran out and the camps couldn’t operate any longer. I had heard about Seabeck, the DeafBlind Retreat that had been operating for decades (now almost 40 years) in the Olympic peninsula of Washington State. The week-long retreat accommodated 80 DeafBlind folks and 150 volunteers. I first went in 1998. I was excited to see many of the same DeafBlind individuals and volunteers who had come down by bus for the Oregon DeafBlind camps. I started working for the Western Region Interpreter Education Center grant at Western Oregon University in 2007. I heard about service-learning as an opportunity for students to apply their studies through meaningful community service with instruction and reflection and thought about how Western was well-positioned to collaborate with the DeafBlind community, a community always in search of qualified, ASL-fluent interpreters and sighted guides. I began to reach out to the Seattle DeafBlind community leaders and initiate a relationship. I’d been away from active volunteering in the community for a decade and there were new faces and I wanted to work to create a project with students to train them. Soon after our relationship was underway, Seattle Central Community College’s interpreter program was disbanded and building that relationship was even more valuable especially as many Western students hail from Washington. In the 12 years since I first taught Western students about DeafBlind interpreting and guiding, 135 students have gone to volunteer at Seabeck. These students have been hearing, Deaf or hard of hearing. Many students have found their spiritual home and community at Seabeck and return year after year to volunteer now on their own, as they have built their own relationships with DeafBlind community members and other volunteers. Western has also built a strong relationship with the active volunteer organization, WSDBC, the Washington State DeafBlind Citizens. This group has quarterly meetings and works with us to provide volunteers so that their members can actively plan and engage in their community. I’m proud of the way we work to show up. Aware of our privilege and power and working to affirm each DeafBlind individual’s dignity, worth and right to access and information through touch. This partnership is a journey we are on with WSDBC, the DeafBlind Service Center, and The Lighthouse for the Blind which plans the Seabeck Retreat, and we strive to honor the DeafBlind community’s experience first in. We see how much value and learning is gained and because of this relationship, we are better able to prepare our graduates to go on and work with other DeafBlind individuals and pursue their passions with this community. I continue to be amazed at how opportunities have opened up for interpreters to work with DeafBlind individuals, traveling for conferences, cruises, workshops, and the like. Witnessing students who are no longer students in most cases using ProTactile ASL and being open to how to grow and learn more is a wonderful affirmation that the relationship we continue to build and work on is worthwhile. -CM Hall CM HALLCM Hall, Ed.M., NIC Advanced, EIPA K-12, is the DBI Project Manager. CM has volunteered in the DeafBlind community since 1992 and created an academic service-learning project for ASL-fluent students to engage with the DeafBlind community, partnering with the Washington State DeafBlind Citizens organization and the annual Seabeck DeafBlind Retreat.
Video description:
Jenny Lynn (a female with shoulder length brown hair, pulled back at the sides, wears a short sleeved black v-neck shirt and blue jeans) stands in front of a white wall and signs into the camera. Video Transcript: Hello. I am Jenny Lynn Dietrich. I’m from Monmouth, Oregon. I am a graduate student in the Rehabilitation and Mental Health Counseling program at Western Oregon University. I use ProTactile American Sign Language (PTASL) to engage with my close vision interpreters, other people who are DeafBlind or Deaf. PTASL is vital to developing relationships with those around me. As the only DeafBlind person in this area, I often feel isolated, but PTASL gives me a way to fully participate and make connections with others, making me feel less alone. #WhyISignPTASL (Video transcript and description also available for download as an accessible Word document) #WhyISignPTASL #whyisignptasl with Paula Clark5/24/2017
Video description:
Paula (a female with long, light brown, straight hair, wears a long sleeve black shirt) stands in front of a light grey background and signs into the camera. Video transcript: Hi. I'm Paula Clark. I'm from Seattle, Washington. I work as an advocate at Abused Deaf Women's Advocacy Services (ADWAS). Having DeafBlind family means that PTASL has always been part of my life. I love the 3D visuo-spatial nature of ASL which offers dynamic lenses to view and express a multitude of perspectives. PTASL incorporates the element of touch providing a ground to capture even greater richness and depth and more nuanced perspectives. I think PTASL is invaluable because through touch, access to communication, shared understanding, and connection is possible. #WhyISignPTASL (Video transcript and description also available for download as an accessible Word document) #WhyISignPTASL #whyisignptasl with rebecca cowan-story5/17/2017
Video description:
Rebecca (a female with chin length dark wavy hair, wears glasses and a black v-neck blouse) sits in front of a dark grey background and signs into the camera. Video transcript: Hello. My name is Rebecca Cowan-Story. I am from Atlanta, GA. I am the state coordinator for DeafBlind services with Georgia Vocational Rehabilitation, often referred to as VR. I use ProTactile American Sign Language because I want to honor the DeafBlind community, culture, and be able to fully communicate. That's why I use PTASL. #WhyISignPTASL (Video transcript and description also available for download as an accessible Word document) #WhyISignPTASL |