St. Louis Dispatch Article

Jul 6, 2005 Author: Meredith | Filed under: deafness

I found an article from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch called The signs are always good to interpreters for deaf. I found a number of inaccuracies in the article, so I sent a note to the author.

Dear Mr. Hudson,

As a professional sign language interpreter in the Washington DC area, I read your article “The signs are always good to interpreters for deaf” with great interest. I found a number of inaccuracies within the article.

First of all, there are no levels awarded by the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf, only pass/fail certificates. The level system was used by the National Association of the Deaf, which until recently was a national certifying body in the United States. NAD’s certification program is currently merging with RID’s certification system, and interpreters who received NAD levels III-V are considered by RID to be certified but did not receive their certification from RID.

The article says “interpreters at Levels I and II work for free, with pay for the upper three tiers.” You did not indicate whether this was only a policy of Deaf Inter-Link, which could lead readers to believe it is the case throughout the country. In actuality, NAD levels have no universal impact on an interpreter’s pay. Interpreters awarded the lower two levels may indeed be paid in rural areas or other locations where interpreters are scarce. For more information about the NAD certification and assessment program, please see this link.

Finally, your reference to “Pigeon Signed English” is incorrect. The proper term is “Pidgin Signed English,” commonly known as PSE. As with spoken languages, a pidgin is a combination of two different languages - in this case, ASL and Signed English - to form a mixed language that has elements of both.

Thank you very much for your understanding.

Sincerely,
Meredith P.

Added - His reply, at 11:15am:

Thank you for your comments.
In each case, I checked before I wrote. So it looks like my sources led me astray.

One Response for "St. Louis Dispatch Article"

Dan Parvaz July 7th, 2005 at 10:48 pm 1

I used to live in St. Louis. Shortly after the DPN movement, one of the leaders moved to Missouri and became the Exec. Director of the State Commission for the Deaf/HoH. Under this otherwise enlightened person’s administration, RID certification was no longer acceptd for interpreters. Instead, they required a particular implementation of the Mid-America QAST, a 5-tiered system (NAD before NAD… back when the NAD test was the GLAD certification in Southern Cal.), which led to all kinds of angst, including the notion that groups like St. Louis RID were left in the cold as far as credentials went. Although RID is back at the table, thanks to good leadership, they’re still reeling from all that.

Still, there *used* to be a very well-run, well-informed program (AA-level, alas) at Florissant Valley Community College, which should have been a source of accurate info. And the Bradshaws certainly know better. I knew Dan and Alta back in the 80s — both were crackerjack interpreters, as were their kids — when they were deeply involved in Pentecostal ministry (I wasn’t .