While working a 12 hour day of covering Division 3 softball (::sigh:: what a long day), there was a team from Gallaudet University. Now if you do not know, this is a university in Washington DC that is primarily made up and focuses on the education of deaf and hard of hearing students. [Here is their site if you are interested in finding out more: http://www.gallaudet.edu/x47919.xml]
During undergrad, I took a course in ASL and learned quite a bit about the deaf community. It found it to be a fun language to learn and overall the class was pretty interesting. I always find it interesting to imagine your life in a different way; particularly for this topic, not being able to speak in English in the class really allowed me to do so.
ANYWAYS, back to this weekend. There were a few times I, as one of the practicing ATs on staff for the day, needed to communicate with the athletes and coach of this team. In the end, it came down to written English, or by lip reading. I was a little upset that my ASL days were too long ago that I froze when trying to even think of simple words and phrases...so much for that education. I had never really considered some difficulties that would exist in communicating with an athlete in the deaf community before this weekend...but, there are definitely some that I could foresee occurring if you do not know ASL.
Although written communication can be efficient for some tasks - like figuring out how to tape someone's wrist (ie, which direction does it hurt? do you throw right handed?, etc) - I could see it becoming a nuisance if you needed to explain an injury or if you needed to use more than one sentences to communicate. The other form that was used was lip reading. Now this I have to say was crazy impressive. There was an athlete who was injured, and the coach was reading my lips and then signing to the athlete. Although impressed with the ability of this coach to be able to be that connecting link between myself and the athlete, it was sort of like playing the game of telephone. I did not know if he was interpreting everything I was saying correctly 100% of the time - obviously, if he really didn't understand me he displayed a look of confusion, or asked me to repeat myself - but with any indirect communication there is always room for some errors. Through both situations, we were able to get through them alright. I did not really see the situations arising and so I might have been taken off guard and uncomfortable at first. Hopefully this did not rub off and did not then make any of the athletes feel any discomfort.
This team also was playing down on the fields that I was covering, and so I got to see them play. I really got sucked in to watching them communicate on the field and in the dugout. I just found it all so mesmerizing. For me it was hard to imagine playing softball with no yelling seeing as I was a loud mouth player back in the day, but these ladies sure did make it work. There were a few things observed that seemed to be a challenge - like calling off fly balls in the outfield, or even any type of cut-off situation - but even with those yelling in the English language, there are errors seen with these tasks.
Everyday we go through new experiences. Being exposed to this one, makes me think... if I were ever exposed in more of a everyday setting, how would I communicate with an athlete if they were deaf or hard of hearing? Honestly I think that I would invest some time into learning more ASL. Especially learning the signs that pertain to the body and would be helpful in everyday communications with this person. I think it would be a unique learning experience for both parties and a pretty neat one altogether. I am so glad I had the opportunity to work with these athletes and coach this weekend. It was not only an eye opening experience but a challenging one as well...and you know as well as I that it is always good to be challenged a little!
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