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What to do when interpreting services might not be a good fit for the student?
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What to do when interpreting services might not be a good fit for the student? | ||||
| 3/8/13 @ 11:19 AM
I have a student this semester who is hard of hearing, or so as how she identifies herself. Her file with the DRS has a mark of her first visit to the office as of April 2012 and there is a note that indicates she had recently lost her hearing. An office member instructed her to bring her a copy of the audiogram. She did that. Then the next entry did not happen again until January 2013 when interpreting services was signed in for her list of services received from our office (this letter typically is sent to the instructors to let them know they will have a student in their classes receiving specified services ie - note taking, testing center, additional time, or anything like that including interpreting services). Spring 2013, this semester, actually marks her first semester of interpreting services provided (the semesters before she had classes but not registered DRS students). It wasn't until about few weeks into class that the interpreters assigned to this student started asking us if the student should be receiving interpreting services. One of the interpreters assigned to this student recognized her from last semester in a class she interpreted and said this student was attending class as a hearing student (ie - no services provided to the student in question at the time since she was not a registered DRS student either). After I met with her, I immediately informed the interpreters my concerns of her ability in using interpreters in terms of receiving information. She struggled to communicate with me and she disclosed that she was still learning the language (this semester is ASL II). This raised my concerns that she may be requesting interpreters in order to learn the language faster, for some reason. First check in with the interpreters, they said all was well, no issues, student kept up, etc. Coming back to when the issue started coming up few weeks into class. The interpreter said that she finds herself having to choose the best method whether to maintain the speed the student can keep up with (and risk falling behind in terms of information the teacher discussed) or keep up with the teacher (and the student fall behind). The interpreter said this class and particular teacher definitely does not need a team (if any, it's a deaf friendly teacher). Yet, we decided to place two just recently to see if the issue has been resolved. No update on that yet since we JUST started doing that. My supervisor and I discussed CART however, we scratched that idea because the student refuses to voice (according to her interpreters even thought the semester prior, the interpreter heard her using her voice without hesitation). The questions we have in our office is: *For what reason would you tell a student like this that we would not assign an interpreter because of (fill in the blank)? Would that also extend to note-taking services, front row seating, additional testing time (or allow her to have this but without interpreters?) *What reason would we have to deny interpreting services? *Is there a way to evaluate a student on their sign language proficiency (receptive/expressive) in order to effectively use an interpreter? *If late-deafened, how can one determine the need for interpreting services as compared to one who was born deaf and having gone through the motions such as IEP with a previous history shown and using that as a guide for continuing services. What sort of documentation can be requested/used for this? *Can an audiogram be faked? At what level of a loss would her audiogram be in order to be eligible for interpreting services? (We keep referring to her audiogram and it appears hard of hearing but leaning a bit close to the normal hearing levels and we attributed that to having had a recent hearing loss.) We plan to request an updated audiogram to see if there's been any changes, I should point this out. So.... have any of you experienced anything like this? How did you go about handling it? We are at a loss how to handle a student like this. We have had some interesting cases in the past and able to resolve them and fairly quickly. But this one? This is giving us quite the legwork and doing the best we can to get this resolved quickly. I should also stress that the interpreters assigned to the student in question are few of our top ranking interpreters (we use a ranking system in assigning classes as a guide and this includes experience, certifications, licenses, etc). Any information would be greatly appreciated! | ||||
Reply to mcpark
I am curious, have you had a discussion with the student about her hearing loss, its diagnosis and onset? Honestly discussing with her the observations you and the interpreters have witnessed and the challenges with meeting her needs in the classroom might answer a plethora of questions you both have. I am sure she is doing the same thing on her end ("do I tell the interpreters to slow down or suffer and deal with it").
I cannot imagine that with documentation on file that you can decline to provide services for her if she has requested services. You might be able to work something out that is supportive but not as traditional as straight interpreting. She might not realize that interpreting services is not tied to note-taking and really all she wants/needs at this point is the note-taking services.
Dealing with my own progressive late onset hearing loss not due to age, I imagine that there are some questions she might have on how to best work with services while in school. As the supervisor for the DHH services I prefer to engage the student and ask why they are requesting a particular service when it seems to be an ill fit. That would be the time to ask her how did she do last semseter w/o services and why she made that decision. Sometimes the answer is rational yet misses the mark.
Then again she may be a student with a yet to be diagnosed psychological disorder and has "decided" she is hard of hearing/deaf. In this day and age anything is possible!
I am very interested to see how this plays out keep me posted if you do not mind.
JoAn
Reply to mcpark
JoAn, thank you for responding! We have just returned from spring break.
Yes, most of the information has been documented in her file from few people she has met. When we met, some of the questions I had for her, seemed sound to me at the time. This was just when the semester started. Now that some time has passed, a follow up is needed especially since this is her first semester. You do bring up good point to find out how she did for the semester w/o any services and see if she feels an improvement is there now having the interpreter. I show that she was given notetaker but not sure if she's actually using them, can be a good time to find out.
If she does have a yet to be diagnosed psychological disorder, how do you go about having her referred? I do not think she is, at the moment, a VR sponsored student. If she was, I would have asked her assigned case worker to send me any information of their evaluation with the student's release consent. After the original post, I came across this link: http://www.pepnet.org/forum/languagecommunication/assessing-sign-languag.... Is this an appropriate measure to see if interpreter would be a good accommodations?
Sure, I can keep you posted the outcome. I hope to have more discussions with her before she registers for another class in the fall (or summer if she is planning on it). As much as I want to see her succeed, I want to ensure that we have the right accommodation in place for her.
Reply to mcpark
UPDATE:
We finally got the student to come down to talk with us.
My supervisor and I basically sat down with her and explained seeing how this is our first semester servicing her, we addressed this in a manner where we wanted to ensure she receives the right service. She agreed. We go on to say that we do not think interpreting service is the right fit and how we have other services that we believe will be a better fit for her. We laid out that we think CART will benefit her only because will receive the full access to the language as opposed to interpreters where she may miss information. We have explained to the student that her interpreters have reported their concerns of her understanding them (ie - staying up to speed with the speaker, the student may miss information because of the speed receiving information as well as staying on pace so the student can receive information but missing information on queue with the speaker waiting to be delivered to the student, either way, she loses).
We also inquired if she is currently working with VR counselor (most students here are not sponsored by VR). She said she was not so we referred her to a VR office as we believed she may benefit from additional services that she may qualify for. We are still suspicious of this student's actual hearing level, mainly the reason we had referred her to VR. After the meeting with the student, I asked my supervisor, if she meets with VR and they evaluate her and find her not qualified to receive services, would this mean we would not also provide her service because she doesn't qualify for VR (to be accepted, one would need to confirm the disability that is disclosed to VR, correct?)
We are definitely keep a close eye with this student and documenting everything we can with her, our contact with her and such.