The Deaf Edge

This chapter will be the last until after New Year’s. Hope you all have a great holiday with your family and friends! As always, please read the preceding chapter if you haven’t done so yet. To see the list of characters, please refer to the Preface post.

We pick off where we left off with Mom’s testimony:

Mom: Sure. I remember watching one teacher who was signing and speaking at the same time and asked people to pick up brochures before they left, and this person did not know the sign of “brochure” and signed “44″ instead, actually made up something — and everyone was confused because everybody was getting, “pick up the 44 before you leave.” That was one of the few clean ones.

I have personally observed — people have a tremendous facility for making up signs which they think are conceptually accurate, and then they turn out to be obscene, and I become extremely upset about this. I was watching a child, not Jeannette, in our program, who would come to my home after school.

And I would take care of her until her mother got off work, and this child was very excited and told me in the spring, her class would be going Greenfield fucking, and I almost fell off my chair.

Kary: Did you inquire as to where she had got this?

Mom: Right, and I had a confrontation with her teacher. Apparently — well, “Greenfield” should be spelled out, but the teacher signed “green” and “field” which I understood.

Now this is the sign for town or community or village or whatever (indicating). And the teacher had decided to use initialized signs and so, not knowing obscenities, this woman took the hands and signed community with it which is not that at all (indicating). That is the sign for fucking (indicating).

Kary: Now, was this a TC staff teacher?

Mom: Yes, it was, and there were others which I — I had to practice for a long time for me to say that. And there are many others which are worse than that.

Kary: Is it your observation of the TC staff that led you to question an interpreter for Jeannette for TC staff?

Mom: Yes, it is something that I have been considering for a long time, and I knew that it was going to be met with resistance. I have been very vocal all along about staff sign skills being weak. That is something that is not new. That is something that I have put in writing for years and I’m very upset about it.

However, when the new speech therapist, Carolyn Brady, came on staff, I became adamant and, I don’t like to make fights, and I was hoping over the years that with enough prodding, that something would be done internally in order to make sure that this staff could sign adequately; but when the program was so adamant about not providing an interpreter for Carolyn Brady, realizing that this is not a problem in other programs — Muskegon Public Schools, I am aware, has hired a speech therapist whose signing skills were very weak and they knew that, and without any prodding from parents or anything, provided an interpreter because the staff itself knows that the person does not have the adequate sign skills.

But the Northview staff would not want to admit that. This was like the straw that broke the camel’s back. That was so egregious that I asked it be put in the IEP.

Kary: What happened with Carolyn?

Mom: I don’t understand the question.

Kary: What happened that was so “egregious”?

Mom: Oh, that Carolyn’s lack of sign skills was so poor. Her expressive skills were very weak. Her receptive skills were non-existent. I was convinced that Carolyn had absolutely no idea what Jeannette was signing ever.

Kary: Carolyn Brady, was she TC staff?

Mom: Yes.

Kary: And you had apparently had occasion to observe others with Jeannette?

Mom: Yes, I did.

Kary: When was this?

Mom: This was not last spring. Last spring would have been spring of ‘91. It was the spring of ‘90, I believe, when Penny Helmer was on maternity leave and Carolyn Brady was working as Jeannette’s speech therapist.

Kary: How did you come to observe Jeannette working with her speech therapist?

Mom: Jeannette had come home complaining that she had a new speech therapist who couldn’t sign and could not understand Jeannette, and Jeannette wanted to stop going to speech completely, and I encouraged her to discuss that with Carolyn and with her TC staff person who at that time was Ms. Kalsbeek, and Jeannette told me that Ms. Kalsbeek had said that well, if you feel that you can’t communicate with Carolyn and you need an interpreter, call Mrs. Siciliano and request an interpreter. It’s your right to have one.

And subsequently, Jeannette’s request was denied and there were many, many parents that were upset because their children were upset that they could not communicate with Mrs. Brady. And there were seven families that were represented at the meeting with Northview Administration over a wide variety of issues, but the motivating issue was the issue of Mrs. Brady’s inability to communicate with her children. The superintendent at that meeting –

Kary: Who was the superintendent?

Mom: John La Sotta. — indicated that he realized that the parents felt very strongly about this, but I don’t know. He said it was adequate since Mr. La Sotta didn’t sign himself.

But if we were so adamant about this, we could observe our children in speech with Mrs. Brady, and if we still felt we needed an interpreter for our children, that an interpreter would be provided.

Kary: So that is how you came to have this observation?

Mom: Yes.

Kary: Describe what you saw at the observation.

Mom: Jeannette was at a table with Mrs. Brady. I was invited to sit at the table with them, but I did not. I did not want to interrupt their session, so I sat across the room. Mrs. Brady, she was working first on articulation with Jeannette. I believe I testified to this last month.

She told Jeannette to hold the sound, and just to trust the crazy language, and Jeannette was totally confused and did not know what she wanted from her. You do not hold a sign. You continue. And it is not a sound that you want to continue, it is the voice you want to continue. There was no conceptual accuracy as well as, you know, errors in the signs themselves.

I also observed that she and Jeannette were working on idioms and she would ask Jeannette — she would give Jeannette a card and ask her what that idiom meant. She would read it aloud to Jeannette as well, so I knew what was on the card from Carolyn reading it, and Jeannette would give the wrong answer and Carolyn didn’t understand what Jeannette was signing.

Kary: How did you know what Jeannette was signing?

Mom: Because Jeannette gave the wrong answer. I know what the idiom meant and that Jeannette was giving the wrong answer, and Carolyn would say very good.

Kary: Carolyn Brady was TC staff? Is she TC staff any longer?

Mom: Yes, she still is.

Kary: Could she still be assigned as speech therapist?

Mom: Yes, she could.

Continue to Chapter 14

Table of Contents

Before I resume the blog serial, I need to apologize for not posting in the last two days. As many of the regular readers know, a situation arose in the Deaf v/blogosphere, and I was busy blogging on that. So now, we are returning to our regular programming…

As always, please read the preceding chapter if you haven’t done so yet. To see the list of characters, please refer to the Preface post.

We continue with Betty Colonomos’ testimony (this was in 1992, by the way):

Kary: Based on your experience and education, can you give us your opinion as to what, if any, level of education an interpreter would need in order to provide the Level 3 ASLPI skills, interpreter services to Jeannette in the eighth grade environment?

Betty: Yes. I have very strong feelings about that, as do a number of task forces that have discussed this very issue for the last ten years. I feel, at the very minimum, the interpreter needs to have a bachelor’s degree at a minimum for these grades. For higher grades, they should have a master’s degree, and that goes back to my point before about the fact that the interpreter needs to understand the material almost as well, if not as well as the teacher does. Therefore, they need to have their level of education, that level of language, that kind of general, broad liberal arts understanding of the world around them to be able to function well in an educational environment, certainly for children who are pursuing on an academic track, they certainly need to have a degree.

Kary: Is there anything else you want to add to your opinion regarding the quality and level of interpreter services that Jeannette needs in that environment?

Betty: If you are asking me what I would say she should have in terms of an interpreter in terms of their qualifications, we talked about ASL skills. We talked about educational background. For me they would need to be certified, nationally certified by the RID, Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf, and I say that only because I have no evidence that there is any other certification or qualifications that guarantees the level of skill that we are talking about.

Kary: In ASL?

Betty: In ASL interpreting. There’s a difference.

(snip)

Kary: If a hearing-impaired teacher did not have that level of sign skills that you have recommended, do you have any recommendation with respect to an alternative provision of that service in the hearing-impaired classroom?

Betty: If the teachers were not able to communicate comfortably with Jeannette and Jeannette with them, then — and assuming that the interpreters were qualified in the way I have outlined, then I would suggest that an interpreter be used in those settings when communication is not happening.

I’m going to jump to my mother’s testimony about her observations of me and the interpreters in the hopes of keeping things clear and connected. I will return later to Betty’s testimony when she is cross-examined by Flaggert afterwards.

Kary: What is it that you observed, if anything, that led you to conclude that Mrs. Lilly’s interpreting for Jeannette in reading was inappropriate?

Mom: Ms. Lilly does not exhibit any knowledge of American Sign Language for one thing. She uses a strict English mode. She would not sign exact English because she does not tense her verbs. In fact, she doesn’t tense her verbs using any mode at all, so that everything that is being conveyed by Ms. Lilly appears to occur in the present tense whereas strictly signing exact English would cause one to tense verbs in an English fashion as opposed to an ASL fashion.

Ms. Lilly appears to not process information or give citation signs. Let me give you an example and I think that it is used within that report that was admitted in evidence.

Kary: By that report, you mean your observation notes?

Mom: Yes, yes. At one point, the teacher of the reading class asked the meaning of the word “cast” as it had been used in the story which she read to the class.

Aside from the fact that the word “cast” never appeared on the interpreter’s hands, and so Jeannette could not have any knowledge of that, the class seemed to be at a loss and so the teacher asked, well what is a “cast” what you would put on a broken wrist, that white hard stuff? And one young man in the class said no, there were no broken bones in the story. And the teacher said right, that meaning doesn’t apply. And Ms. Lilly gave an incorrect interpretation of that word, “apply”.

You have to be able to process — the sign that she used for “apply” was this (indicating), and that is like you apply for a job, apply for benefits, apply for insurance.

Now the most — so it was conceptually incorrect and Jeannette was very confused by that. There is an appropriate, sophisticated sign “apply” (indicating) that would have perfectly suited that situation.

I could also have accepted a less sophisticated interpretation which was conceptually correct which would be “relate.” The vocabulary is not as sophisticated as this sign for “apply” (indicating), but I would not have objected in terms of conceptual accuracy.

Ms. Lilly did that twice with the same word, which indicates to me that she does not process information and has weaknesses with her understanding of the English language because she is not exhibiting an understanding of the multiple meanings within the English language as one would in any translation situation, not just sign. Her vocabulary choices were not always conceptually accurate. And that is further evidence to me that Ms. Lilly has some extremely weak areas within the English language.

(snip) I’m now going to jump to my mother’s testimony about the TC teachers’ signing abilities and why she wanted an interpreter there with me and some TC staff.

Kary: Now, you testified that you had experience interacting both while you were working for Northview as a substitute interpreter and otherwise with the TC staff at Hills and Dales?

Mom: Yes.

Kary: What, if anything, can you tell us about your observations regarding Total Communication staff and their uses of other languages?

Mom: Basically, all of the staff use sign-supported speech which is basically — from pure signed English to a form of Pidgin English which, as I stated before, it is not possible to speak English and sign ASL at the same time. It is like writing French and speaking English at the same time.

I have been also able to observe that many teachers have very poor sign language skills. They have very limited vocabulary. They have virtually no understanding of the grammar of ASL or the three dimensionality of sign language, and they make up signs which infuriates me.

Let me explain that when I go into a college classroom and I am interpreting an electronics course, there are no signs for superheterodyne receiver and transducer and things like this. And my client and I will agree on a sign, and we know it is not a real sign, and it is something that the two of us have agreed on. They may say superheterodyne receiver 60 times in one 50-minute lecture. That is not what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about teachers inventing signs that are incorrect and making the child believe that this is, in fact, a real sign and the child will use that in the deaf community thinking it is a formal sign.

Kary: Can you give us an example of how this works? Something based on observation?

Mom: Sure. I remember watching one teacher who was signing and speaking at the same time and asked people to pick up brochures before they left, and this person did not know the sign of “brochure” and signed “44″ instead, actually made up something — and everyone was confused because everybody was getting, “pick up the 44 before you leave.” That was one of the few clean ones.

I have personally observed — people have a tremendous facility for making up signs which they think are conceptually accurate, and then they turn out to be obscene, and I become extremely upset about this. I was watching a child, not Jeannette, in our program, who would come to my home after school.

And I would take care of her until her mother got off work, and this child was very excited and told me in the spring, her class would be going Greenfield fucking, and I almost fell off my chair.

Continue to Chapter 13

Table of Contents

This is a blog serial – so please read the preceding chapter if you haven’t done so yet. To see the list of characters, please refer to the Preface post.

This is based on Betty and Mom’s testimony, Mom’s notes and my memories on what happened that day in Reading class when Mom came to observe.

We were always going over vocabulary in Reading class, and we often read passages from the books out loud. I understood it far better when I read the text myself, and not watching Kim Lilly, the interpreter.

It was particularly confusing that day when Mom came to observe, and I’m glad Mom was there to witness it. The teacher read some text out loud, but I had to pay attention to Kim, and the teacher voiced the phrase, ‘cast a glance.’

Kim used the ASL sign, which would be conceptually accurate for every class, except for English and Reading. I didn’t know the exact English words the teacher wanted to pinpoint in that phrase. The word ‘cast,’ which was going to be discussed for the rest of the class, was never interpreted.

So, I’m sitting there in confusion when the teacher jumps to talking about what the word ‘cast’ meant in the context of the text. The other kids were saying, ‘It isn’t something you put on a broken leg,’ etc.

I had to go back and read the text to figure out what the heck was going on while the class were discussing it. So naturally, while I read, I missed out on some of the class discussion.

We now resume Betty’s testimony.

Kary: Now, we have discussed the issue of preparation time for interpreters. Do you recall discussing that with me?

Betty: Yes, we have.

Kary: Could you relate for the hearing officer what preparation time is, what, if any, requirements there are respecting it, and why it’s important?

Betty: It’s extremely important, first of all, for interpreters to understand the materials that they are going to interpret, particularly if their job is working between two languages. In other words, if their job is merely to code a word for some other symbol like Morse code, they don’t necessarily need to understand what the words mean, they just need to know the code, but when you are talking about interpreting, even if it’s not strictly ASL interpreting, if you are talking about trying to convey concepts, then the interpreter must understand — in the interpreting field we have our own kind of ten commandments, and the first commandment of interpreting is Thou Shalt Understand.

So it’s very critical that the interpreter understands the materials completely, probably as well as the speaker, whether they are teacher or some other person, so that they have full access to selection of vocabulary and structures in the target language, which is the language interpreter is working in to be able to express an equivalent meaning.

So it’s very critical, especially when interpreters may be lacking in some language areas, that they do a fair amount of preparation, and that preparation takes several forms. In this particular case, in an educational setting where interpreters are moving to different classes with different students, it seems to me at a very minimum they need to be prepared with content.

That means they should be going over chapters and assignments and material that will be covered the next day. They should have access to that material. It means they should know their students. They should have a good sense of expressive and receptive languages. They should also understand something about what the teacher’s goal is, in other words, for the lesson and what the purpose of the activity is.

For example, in the case I just cited to you, I just explained to you about ‘cast’. Had the interpreter known or prepared in the sense that she knew — I am assuming it is a she — knew that the word ‘cast’ was going to be relevant for the teacher’s lesson, then it would make sense to me that she would spell out the word ‘cast’ so the deaf child could participate there.

So it may be a reflection that the interpreter was not aware what this particular exercise was about and so did not consider that in the decision to sign it a certain way rather than another way.

The same thing is true of spelling tests, for example. This is particularly difficult in educational settings. With spelling tests there needs to be something worked out where the deaf child can have access to the word without spelling out the word, because if the interpreter spells the word, they have given the child the answer, obviously.

So there are many different kinds of logistics that need to be worked out. For example, will there be media used in the room, television or visual aids, and where should the interpreter be positioned. Those kinds of things are all involved with preparation.

(snip)

Kary: I started by asking you some questions about Mrs. Johnson’s observations contained in P-28. You have had the opportunity to meet with and be with Mrs. Johnson over the last day, day and half; isn’t that true?

Betty: Yes.

Kary: Do you have any reason to believe that she would have any difficulty in understanding what an interpreter was saying in any of these classes that she observed or — why don’t I ask you this: Can you give us an idea, in your opinion, as to what her level of ability to understand interpreting is?

Betty: Well, I should say even before I got here, we spent time on the telephone, and I have no reason to believe that Mrs. Johnson is not capable of this kind of description, because basically this report says the teacher said so-and-so, the interpreter signed so-and-so, and so I have no reason to believe that she is not capable of recording observation in a fairly accurate way.

Kary: I am asking you your opinion of Mrs. Johnson’s capability of understanding what the interpreter said.

Betty: She has the linguistic ability to understand the interpreter and what her daughter is saying and what the teacher is saying, as far as I can tell, yes.

(snip)

Kary: Can you quantify, based on your language assessment of Jeannette and your knowledge to date of her status based on your personal conversations in signing with her, as to what level of fluency an interpreter would have to have to maximize her potential in an educational setting in the eighth grade?

Flaggert objected due to subjectivity versus objectivity. It was overruled due to Dr. Betty Colonomos being an expert.

Betty: I am going to answer the question a little differently from the way you asked it, the only way I feel I can answer it. I think that if, for example, we are using some quantifiable measure such as the LPI (Language Proficiency Interview), and I am going to use that only because there is a quantifiable description of these levels, and I am looking at the setting in which we are talking about. We are talking about an educational setting in which we are talking about academic subjects, some of which involve technical language.

I would say based on that, regardless of Jeannette, because from my interaction from her, my assessment of her, I was using full-blown adult level complex ASL, so for me that’s not an issue, there shouldn’t be any ceiling on how much ASL she should be allowed to see in terms of it shouldn’t be above this level. Clearly she understand a very wide range, but in terms of what’s a minimum for the interpreter to be producing in that kind of setting, Level 3 specifies, Level 3 of the LPI specifies that that level of language shows that the person is proficient in discussing academic subjects, technical subjects, decontextualized language, meaning, we are talking about lectures, not social, not the here and now.

So for me that would be the minimum level for anyone working in an educational setting for any language with a client who is using an interpreter, and that’s how I would answer that question.

Kary: Based on your experience and education, can you give us your opinion as to what, if any, level of education an interpreter would need in order to provide the Level 3 ASLPI skills, interpreter services to Jeannette in the eighth grade academic environment?

Betty: Yes. I have very strong feelings about that, and as do a number of task forces that have discussed this very issue for the last ten years. I feel, at the very minimum, the interpreter needs to have….

Continue to Chapter 12

Table of Contents

This is a blog serial – so please read the preceding chapter if you haven’t done so yet. To see the list of characters, please refer to the Preface post.

We continue with Betty Colonomos’ testimony:

Kary: Can you tell us what your findings were?

Betty: My findings were that she is very comfortable and competent at understanding ASL, that that’s very easy for her to do, and she responded very appropriately to my ASL questions and conversation. She — her expressive ASL skills, if she were to be compared with a native ASL user, meaning, someone coming from a deaf family using ASL, probably are a little below her age, is a little bit below her age in terms of normal, but there is no reason to compare her with a native. She is developmentally, probably it’s hard to put an age on it because we don’t have exact norms for age, but around her age level for ASL expressively. Her English, written English far exceeds her grade level. She has a very rich vocabulary.

Kary: Speaking of English?

Betty: ASL and English, both of them, very extensive vocabulary. She does not have all of the grammatical structures yet of ASL, but is in the process of developing them because they are there, but they are not consistent, and given that she has not been exposed, from my understanding of her background, to adult fluent ASL models, that’s not surprising to me that she would be lacking some of the more sophisticated markers for ASL.

Kary: You said that she doesn’t have all of the grammatical structures — I may be misstating your exact testimony — of ASL?

Betty: Not expressively. Receptively she does.

Kary: Can you explain the difference?

Betty: Well, yes. Everyone has basically two different kinds of halves of a language, receptive language and expressive language, and all people who have normal language development have receptive skills that far exceeds their expressive skills. In other words, you understand much more English than you will ever use in your lifetime. You don’t use every word that you understand, for example, and this is true of most language development.

So her receptive ASL is at or beyond her age. There is no problem with that, and I have used very complex grammatical structure with her. She had no difficulty understanding what I meant. She responded appropriately to those things. So she receptively has ASL in place.

Kary: Can you tell me what, if any, significance that has?

Betty: Well, it’s significant in that since in the educational setting it’s almost always the case that the child is receiving information from the teacher or other hearing people, it’s the receptive language for me that’s most critical, that the child receive the expressive language that they are most familiar with and most comfortable with and that they process most sufficiently, and for Jeannette that clearly is ASL.

Now, whether or not she expresses to that level of ASL around hearing people in a school setting is to me not very relevant.

Kary: Why not?

Betty: Because she, like other deaf people, is used to accommodating people who are not ASL users. So the assumption is that unless you are a skilled ASL signer, the assumption from the deaf person is that you are not going to understand them if they use their full ASL, so they will try to accommodate you again, in this pidgin mode to understand them better.

So if the person is going to be interpreted into English, there may be some concern that they are not going to be voiced interpreted appropriately if they use too much ASL with someone that hasn’t demonstrated enough ASL.

So that’s a very normal response in the deaf community in an interpreting situation, that deaf persons, even if they are very fluent in ASL, would not use their language to their full extent unless the interpreter was highly skilled and qualified and they were confident that they understood ASL. So her expressive language is not necessarily a reflection of what she processes internally.

(snip)

Kary: Betty, I believe you already testified about this, but I’d like to ask you, when you did your language assessment for Jeannette, did you tell us what you found with respect to her English language skill?

Betty: Well, I saw samples of her written English, and I was able to make a cursory judgment about her English skills, which were very atypical for a deaf child.

Kary: When you say atypical, what exactly did you find?

Betty: That her English was — had very, very few grammatical errors, if any. One of the samples had none and the other one had a very minor error, and her vocabulary is very well developed. This is very unusual for deaf children to have a beyond grade level for English skills.

(snip)

Kary: Betty, I’d like to show you what’s been marked as D-22, Exhibit D-22, and directing your attention to the lower right-hand corner, you and I have discussed this document briefly, have we not?

Betty: Yes.

Kary: And this purports to be Jeannette’s report card, what would be the lower-right hand corner turned sideways next to the marking D-22-1 is a listing of grades for Johnson, Jeannette, 1991, ‘92, correct?

Betty: Yes.

Kary: Could you tell us her grades in Reading and English?

Betty: Reading her grade is a C. English is a D+.

Kary: I’d like to direct your attention to D22-8, which purports to be what is commonly known as the CAT, or California Achievement Test for Jeannette Johnson. We have had a chance to discuss this, have we not?

Betty: Yes, we have.

Kary: We have got the English or the language-oriented materials in the upper left-hand corner of the lower box. Briefly, her scores in those categories are all in the categories marked mastery above, except for a few exceptions, which appear to be affixes, which she scored in the 60 percentile. Same with respect to pronouns, nouns adjectives, in the 50 percentile for periods, question marks and exclamations.

Betty: Comma, colon, proofreading, I think.

Kary: But otherwise the language-related scores indicate mastery level in most of the categories; isn’t that correct?

Betty: As a matter of fact, in the comprehension category, it’s completely in the mastery. In the total comprehension category, the ones that have some lower scores are in the mechanics, meaning, use of punctuation and so forth, and in vocabulary only one of them falls in the 60 percentile. The rest are in the mastery level.

Kary: We had the opportunity to discuss with Jeannette how this test was administered, did we not?

Betty: Yes.

Kary: Can you relate to us what she told us about how that test was administered?

Betty: She said that the instructions and the test materials are all in printed form of English. There was no spoken language accompanying the test.

Kary: It seems to me that there is a substantial discrepancy between the CAT test results and her grades in English and Reading, which appear to be related to those areas that we have discussed on the CAT test. Would you agree?

Betty: Yes, I agree there’s quite a discrepancy in the scores on the standardized test and her performance in English and reading classes.

Kary: Based on your knowledge and experience and education with respect to deaf children and your evaluation of language assessments of Jeannette, do you have an opinion as to how we can account for that discrepancy?

Betty: Well, there is probably a number of factors that would come into play, and I cannot be certain of any one of them or a combination of any of them, but clearly the test is administered wholly in written English, and it’s very clear Jeannette excels in that form of English.

In the classroom, I suspect that much less of the material is being conveyed in written English, probably much more so in spoken English from the instructor in reading and English classes. So that shifts to a different modality for English says that, number one, that Jeannette is not very competent in understanding spoken English, which is pretty usual for deaf children since they don’t hear it, and that the information that’s coming in some other form, certainly not directly — it’s not directly through written English, which is a very strong area of skill. So that’s one possibility, that there is the transmission, the transmission from the teacher to students there may be some problem with understanding what the teacher is explaining.

There may be other reasons. I am assuming that she has attended class. I am assuming if she has attended class and handed in her assignments, that the grade reflects some kind of performance difficulty, and it’s hard to explain in my mind. I certainly don’t have any answers, but it’s hard to explain in my mind why her performance in English, given that she’s done what she is required to do for the class, does not somehow parallel to some extent her beyond grade level scores on a standardized English test.

(snip)

Kary: You, yourself, did not have the opportunity to observe Jeannette in any classroom setting, did you?

Betty: No, although when I spoke to Mrs. Johnson by phone, I said that I felt it would be much more valid and important for me if I could observe her in class and also observe her interpreter so that I could make some judgment about what was actually going on there, but my understanding was that somehow that was not permitted.

Kary: Now, in fact, Mrs. Johnson herself did observe Jeannette in class; isn’t that true?

Betty: So I understand.

Kary: And she compiled some notes of her observations that we have discussed; isn’t that true?

Betty: Yes.

(snip)

Kary: Do you know, to the best of your recollection, why you were unable to observe Jeannette yourself in class?

Betty: My recollection is I was told that the school would not permit it. I don’t know much more than that. I’m not sure why.

(snip)

Kary: Without going through the whole thing, are there any particular episodes that are related in there, assuming that Mrs. Johnson’s observations were accurate, that are of significance to our understanding of Jeannette’s needs and/or the interpreter qualifications that she needs in the classroom setting?

Betty: Yes, there are several, but there’s one very striking one, I think, that would relate to at least some of what’s going in the reading class……

Continue to Chapter 11

Table of Contents