INTERPRETING

BSL/English Interpreters are qualified professionals who facilitate communication between Deaf BSL users and people who don’t understand British Sign Language.

CSWs work in schools, colleges, universities, adult education centres and work environments. By providing communication support the Deaf person can better interact with their teachers/lecturers and other students.

A Deaf or Grassroots Relay Interpreter will work with Deaf people who have extra communication needs. This may be when a Deaf person has particular language difficulties because of a mental health condition or learning disability – or come from another area using a very different dialect of BSL.

Also known as ‘hands-on signing’ or Tactile BSL, where the receiver’s hands are placed lightly upon the back of the hands of the interpreter to read the signs through touch and movement. This method can also include tactile fingerspelling using the Deafblind manual alphabet.

A lipspeaker is a hearing person trained to repeat a speaker’s message to lipreaders accurately, without using their voice. They produce clearly the shape of words, the flow, rhythm and phrasing of natural speech and repeat the stress as used by the speaker. The lipspeaker also uses facial expression, natural gesture and fingerspelling (if requested) to aid the lipreader’s understanding.

An Electronic Notetaker provides communication support for D/deaf people who are comfortable reading English at high speed. The Electronic Notetaker produces a real-time summary of what is said using an ordinary laptop computer – usually linked to a second laptop for the client to read from.