Uploaded August 2022 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Heather Lawson. (2021). "Educational Interpreters: Facilitating Communication or Facilitating Education?" In ADVANCES IN EDUCATIONAL INTERPRETING, edited by Elizabeth A. Winston and Stephen B. Fitzmaurice, 245-265. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.
https://gupress.gallaudet.edu/Books/A/Advances-in-Educational-Interpreting
This video may not be repurposed or incorporated into other works in any way without the express written consent of the signer and the chapter author.
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Educational interpreters nationwide fill a variety of roles in their schools, including interpreter, direct instructor, tutor, assistant, consultant, and others, and how these roles impact the interpretation of classroom discourse is uncertain. Often interpreters themselves are making these decisions without including the deaf student, teacher or others. The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act promises a free appropriate public education for all students, including deaf students. To satisfy this we need to know more about the roles educational interpreters are filling and their impact on a deaf student’s access to the classroom discourse.
This study was a quantitative study of a high school classroom with a deaf student and an interpreter using naturalistic observation, augmented with qualitative data from interviews with the interpreter, deaf student, and two teachers. In the classroom observation, the interpreter filled different roles. In examining the different roles filled during the class observed, the interpreter in this study filled the interpreter role during only 41% of the intervals analyzed. In all, 36% of the intervals were interpreted while 40% of the teacher’s discourse was not interpreted.
During the days observed, the interpreter in this study spent more time in the direct instruction role as opposed to interpreting the classroom discourse even though she was not required to teach or tutor. In this study, communication access appears to have been impacted by the interpreter filling multiple roles, particularly the direct instructor role. Knowing the importance of social communication in language development, and therefore cognitive development, the roles that interpreters fill in the classroom, as well as the placement of the deaf student in an inclusion class, should be carefully examined. Additionally, a new approach to defining the role space of the interpreter must be taken to include a Demand Control Skema analysis of the demands of the educational system and the controls the interpreter has or should have, to address those demands and Systems Thinking analysis by all members of the educational system collaboratively deciding the interpreter’s role.
Heather Lawson. (2021). "Educational Interpreters: Facilitating Communication or Facilitating Education?" In ADVANCES IN EDUCATIONAL INTERPRETING, edited by Elizabeth A. Winston and Stephen B. Fitzmaurice, 245-265. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.
https://gupress.gallaudet.edu/Books/A/Advances-in-Educational-Interpreting
This video may not be repurposed or incorporated into other works in any way without the express written consent of the signer and the chapter author.
+++++++
Educational interpreters nationwide fill a variety of roles in their schools, including interpreter, direct instructor, tutor, assistant, consultant, and others, and how these roles impact the interpretation of classroom discourse is uncertain. Often interpreters themselves are making these decisions without including the deaf student, teacher or others. The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act promises a free appropriate public education for all students, including deaf students. To satisfy this we need to know more about the roles educational interpreters are filling and their impact on a deaf student’s access to the classroom discourse.
This study was a quantitative study of a high school classroom with a deaf student and an interpreter using naturalistic observation, augmented with qualitative data from interviews with the interpreter, deaf student, and two teachers. In the classroom observation, the interpreter filled different roles. In examining the different roles filled during the class observed, the interpreter in this study filled the interpreter role during only 41% of the intervals analyzed. In all, 36% of the intervals were interpreted while 40% of the teacher’s discourse was not interpreted.
During the days observed, the interpreter in this study spent more time in the direct instruction role as opposed to interpreting the classroom discourse even though she was not required to teach or tutor. In this study, communication access appears to have been impacted by the interpreter filling multiple roles, particularly the direct instructor role. Knowing the importance of social communication in language development, and therefore cognitive development, the roles that interpreters fill in the classroom, as well as the placement of the deaf student in an inclusion class, should be carefully examined. Additionally, a new approach to defining the role space of the interpreter must be taken to include a Demand Control Skema analysis of the demands of the educational system and the controls the interpreter has or should have, to address those demands and Systems Thinking analysis by all members of the educational system collaboratively deciding the interpreter’s role.
