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The Shoals |
The Shoals chapter of ALRID was established in 1994 and currently 11 members.
Members of the Shoals chapter are often featured or interviews for news relating to the interpreting and Deaf communities in North Alabama. Reprints of one of these articles is below. Recently NewsChannel 19 interviewed Glenda Cain (past president of the Shoals Chapter) and Terri Huntley (Educational Interpreter) regarding the proposed bill to make ASL an accepted Foreign Language in Alabama.
The Shoals Chapter of ALRID meets quarterly at the AIDB/Shoals Regional Center in Tuscumbia. We have 11 members: 6 are interpreters in city and county school systems, 2 are teachers for the hearing impaired, 1 is the director for AIDB/SRC, 1 is a former interpreter, and 1 is a retired nationally certified interpreter.
Through the year 2003-2004, SRID offered a workshop on finger spelling presented by Judith Labath; made available the "Self-Paced Modules for Educational Interpreter Skill Development" and various training tapes to members of SRID; helped Glenda Cain, director of the AIDB/SRC, with story time activities and teaching Keller Kids to sign the song "Miracle of Love" for a performance during the Helen Keller Festival; and discussed ways interpreters could earn the required number of CEUs per ALBIT.
Two members attended the ALRID Conference in Gulf Shores. One of the SRID members, Betty Ingram, and her husband are working through the Accessibility Committee of Tuscumbia to develop Tuscumbia into an international model city for access. They held a public forum on September 11, 2003 at Helen Keller Public Library.
For more information about the Shoals Chapter, please contact Cheri Suns, chapter president, at shoals@alrid.org.
Hear This: Deaf Drivers To Get Better Test-Taking Method
From: WHNT, AL - Jul 21, 2004
Jeff Butera Reports, 7/21/04
Glenda Cain knows plenty of deaf people. And the regional director at Alabama's Institute of the Deaf and Blind says hearing-impaired people don't have a problem driving. However, they do have a problem getting their license.
The problem getting the license is a product of how the test is given. As it is now, deaf people don't take the test like normal-hearing people -- answering questions on a computer at their own pace.
Instead, they watch the questions on a video monitor. They have to read the question and answer it before the screen changes.
The problem with that, is that deaf people are used to getting instructions from an interpreter sitting in the passenger's seat. The instructor uses sign language to convey their directions. On the test, deaf people have to read the questions. And going from reading sign language to reading English is like translating a foreign language.
"You go to take your test and you're supposed to take it in a different language in essence," Cain says, "and that could mean the language is unfamiliar to them and cause them to make wrong choices."
Alabama officials think they've made the right choice. The state in the first in the nation to offer computerized drivers license tests for deaf people. The tests are very similar to the ones that normal-hearing people take. Applicants take the test on a computer, answering questions at their own pace on the computer. The new feature, though, is that the computer translates the questions into sign language.
"I know the deaf community is going to be very proud because they feel like the state is acknowledging who they are and their communication needs," Cain says.
The machines premiered in Birmingham yesterday. They'll be seen throughout the state -- including in Huntsville and Sheffield -- soon.
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