I need some advise on jobs out there that deal with deaf people but in a way that provides a service FOR them that involves signing with them as a matter of course. I love language and think that I could do speech therapy but I'm wary about doing speech therapy for deaf people from a more philosophical standpoint. I'm not about FIXING them; they're not broken, although I do know that learning how to communicate with a hearing world is important. I would love to use sign language to help teach them how to communicate in the world, but I don't know if I could respect the wishes of parents who think that signing is 'bad' and that the only course is to teach their deaf kids how to speak/read lips.
Anyone have any suggestions?
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Basically, you can use ASL and work with Deaf/HoH people in any profession. If you are proficient enough in the language to really be considered fluent, you can work with Deaf people. You can be a nurse, you can be a psychologist, you can be a doctor, you can be a lawyer.
You may work with hearing people, as well, because the Deaf community is small and there may not be as big of a need for those services in your community, but Deaf people use the same services anyone else does. Do whatever you would like to do.
Speech therapy is an interesting field, because a lot of the professionals out there give conflicting information to parents. It is difficult for a parent to sift through all the information and really figure out what’s best for their child. It is important to have speech pathologists/therapists that are knowledgeable and have the right attitude, which you seem to have. Part of the job would be educating the parents, so that they don’t make the kinds of decisions you speak of.
There are countless ways of learning signing, and the hottest way nowadays is to learn it through the employment of a web course. They're also terribly cheap compared with the raised costs of hiring somebody to coach you.
There’s also the satisfaction from knowing you can break down language barriers even without letting out a single word – not vocally, anyway.
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