Step 4: Implementing the accommodation plan

With a sign language interpreter and note-taker, Deborah had equal access to the lectures in class. In fact, one of her professors noted that having his videos captioned seemed to help most students. Deborah and her sign language interpreter met with each professor to discuss possible places to position the interpreter in the classroom. Deborah was able to choose seating that had the best line of sight for both the lecturer and the interpreter and enabled her to use her residual hearing and lip-reading skills to the best advantage. Though Deborah could follow the lecture, she found that technical terms were difficult to understand because there were no signs for them. Thus, the interpreter had to try and fingerspell them for Deborah.

Deborah also experienced some difficulties in the small group activities of her English writing course. Once a week, the professor had students meet in small groups to discuss their writing assignments. Small group discussions, unlike a lecture, involve more than one speaker. That meant Deborah had to follow more than one speaker at a time, which is impossible for someone with a serious hearing impairment.

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