I babysit a deaf child and have become very interested in ASL. What is a career i could pursue with this?
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I babysit a deaf child and have become very interested in ASL. What is a career i could pursue with this?
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School classroom interpreter
Translation services.
When I was in grad school, I had a peer who was deaf and this translator would come to the classes and transcribe all that was going on in the classroom for her and translate her questions as well. There are translators needed in hospitals, courts, schools, churches, etc.
Also you could teach ASL – I took ASL as a foreign language in college and one of my teachers was deaf and another one wasn’t – she was actually working at a school for children with developmental disabilities and was working with deaf children (I think her degree was in special ed though, but she was certified in ASL).
You could pursue interpreting, deaf ed, research in linguistics or areas of Deaf Culture, counseling, medicine, legal aid (specialize in disability law and cater to deaf clients).
Really, the possibilities are endless. I’d like to caution you about going into teaching ASL. In order to teach a foreign language you should have natural or near-natural skills in the language. Many in the Deaf Community frown upon hearing teachers teaching ASL when they do not have near-natural skills.
Basically, you could enter any profession you want. Deaf people need all sorts of services, just like hearing people do, so you could cater to that need.
Interpreting and Deaf education are the more well known fields, but you could go into anything… social work, speech pathology/audiology, linguistics, psychology… Gallaudet’s graduate school has many degree programs in a variety of fields for people that want to work with the Deaf community in different fields.