American Sign Language with Dahlia H.

Bluegrass Area Development District

My culturally Deaf son is an expert signer, but he has some "real" disabilities such as Tourette Syndrome that cause him to need a caregiver. So I am not only his mom but serve as his paid caregiver for 34.5 hours a week. Many of the community activities we attend are Deaf activities (e.g., the twice-a-month Deaf Gathering in a nearby shopping mall Food Court). These frequent interactions with Deaf persons help me keep my skills sharp and up to date!

KyADAPT (Assisting Deaf Adults to Participate Totally)

As the only paid staff member for KyADAPT, I assisted Deaf adults with "real" disabilities to establish genuine belonging in their community by helping them establish residency in an affordable apartment, explore community activities, and then participate in their activities of choice. I loved this job and left only because KyADAPT ran out of money to pay me. I still maintain contact with many of my former clients and serve KyADAPT as a volunteer. If you're wondering why I use the phrase "real" disabilities, it's because I don't consider deafness to be a disability if the person is culturally Deaf. Most culturally Deaf people can do anything we hearing people can do except hear! They simply use a different language!

Bluegrass Community and Technical College (BCTC)

Whether my BCTC students take my class to communicate with a Deaf family member or simply to avoid French or Spanish, I welcome them and love to teach them! I am ready to enter my 17th year at BCTC and have taught virtually every academic term (including summer) since starting in 2006. Before COVID, I paid Deaf friends to come to my classes so that my students could practice/enhance their ASL skills by conversing with them. Since COVID, I have provided online opportunities for my students to converse with "real live Deaf people".

Kentucky School for the Deaf

For 5 1/2 years I taught Deaf students in various grades of elementary and middle school and worked with students in extracurricular activities such as aquatic exercises in the school swimming pool. Deaf residential school teachers need to be ready to change the grade they teach from one year to the next, because the need for teachers in each grade varies from year to year with the number of students in each grade. I revived KSD's dormant 4-H Club and won an award from the county extension office for best new 4-H leader. I loved this job but was laid off due to budget cuts.

Kentucky Commission on the Deaf and Hard of Hearing

In this position, I assisted the executive director of the Commission to lobby for (and often successfully obtain) state legislation beneficial to Deaf Kentuckians, helped Deaf persons to obtain needed technology and services, compiled and published an annual directory of Deaf services, and wrote and printed a monthly Deaf newsletter. Great experience, and I only left because I had spent several years at Eastern Kentucky University to become a certified teacher of the deaf and a job opening at Kentucky School for the Deaf materialized.

Eastern Kentucky University (EKU)

I served as the first coordinator of this program (the first sign language interpreter training program in Kentucky), administered the grant that funded it, and wrote/administered a second grant which provided scholarships and academic resources for students.. After three years, the funding grant expired and EKU wanted someone with a Ph.D. to serve in this position (I only had a Master's degree), so I served on a committee to replace myself. The program is alive and vibrant today, and I am happy to have had a pioneering role in creating it!

Lees Junior College (now a "satellite campus" of the Hazard Community and Technical College)

I taught ASL classes to members of the college and community for three years (before heading off to Eastern Kentucky University to get my "deaf ed" degree). I frequently brought in members of the local Deaf Community to practice ASL with my students. I also individualized the program content to the greatest extent possible so that every student could learn the signs that were most important to his/her profession.

Eastern Kentucky University

Native Proficiency