Abstract

A new challenge opened up for Miami-Dade Community College when Deaf students, who had previously received sign language interpretation as their support service, began requesting real-time captioning. Reasons for wanting to change their traditional support mainly involved concerns with access to the English vocabulary used in the classroom. Implementing this change proved more complicated than merely a substituting a captionist for a sign language interpreter. Interpretation was still needed. The program staff decided to train sign language interpreters to become captionists. This paper will address the following issues: (1) student concerns with their previous services; (2) the rationale for the decisions; (3) how the college implements the use of both interpreting and captioning, sometimes both within the same class; and (4) student response to this new service delivery model.