The Scottish Government

« Previous | Contents | Next »

Listen

Chapter one: Introduction

Initiatives in Scotland

"The Executive is committed to securing a just and inclusive Scotland. This means tackling discrimination and prejudice across Scotland. It also means tackling the systems, behaviour and attitudes that cause them or sustain them." (Equality Strategy: Working together for Equality, Scottish Executive 2000)

1.1 This is an important starting point. The principles are clear - justice and inclusion. These are major tasks for society if they are to be applied across the differences in the community. The tackling of attitudes which is mentioned also requires recognition of the diversity of need, as well as the recognition of the inherent diversity within society and also the need to be different. To achieve these goals may require a new inclusive Scottish identity which embraces language difference. Such goals are vital to Deaf people and the Scottish Executive has created a context in which research can inform these language developments. While the needs of Deaf people are not explicitly mentioned in the Equalities document, they do appear in the document - A Partnership for a Better Scotland (2003).

"High level commitments

We will develop a new focus for Scotland's languages recognising both our heritage and our diversity.

Supporting Activities

We will legislate to provide secure status for Gaelic through a Gaelic Language Bill. We will introduce a national language strategy to guide the development and support of Scotland's languages, including British Sign Language and ethnic community languages. We will give local authorities and other public bodies a responsibility to draw up a languages plan which reflects the communities they serve."

1.2 This is a very strong action point which for the first time potentially recognises both Deaf diversity and the need to develop the language of Deaf people - British Sign Language. If this comes to pass, Scotland will have the lead among European countries in creating a framework for promotion and development of sign language.

1.3 These policy statements form part of the backdrop for the research work described in the research study.

Deaf people as members of the Public

1.4 The problems start when the resources created by the people do not match the aspirations of all of the people and when there is inherent diversity in society. If there were only Deaf people in society, then there would be no problem of access to service. That is, Deafness itself, is not a barrier to participation, to information or to interaction. The problems arise because Deaf people are in the minority, with a different language and experience. Deaf people are marginalised by the factors which underpin their own community identity.

Who are the Deaf people?

1.5 Although the word 'deaf' has a popular and generic usage meaning someone who does not hear, in the context of the study, Deaf people (with a capital D) are those who are born with a hearing loss or acquire one shortly afterwards, for whom their first language and language of choice is sign language. They are culturally Deaf, living and communicating in a visual medium, where sound has limited currency.

1.6 Interestingly, however, Deaf people will vary in their sensitivity to sound. Although it is strictly true to claim that all sound is vibration and that everyone experiences it, the functional residual hearing of the community members while varying, is likely to be limited. Some Deaf people gain a benefit from a hearing aid; some Deaf people speak, and lip-read to an extent; yet the average performance in literacy, is unlikely to exceed the nine-year old level of hearing people. Even so, we can still find bilingual Deaf people, as we might be able to find hearing people bilingual in English and sign language.

1.7 The vast majority (95% approximately) of Deaf people are born in hearing families where there has been little or no contact with Deaf people. Deaf children and young people are therefore acculturated while at school or in contact with other Deaf young people. Only recently, have Deaf adult models been provided in educational settings. Deaf children in Deaf families learn their sign language naturally from their parents.

1.8 Deaf people in this study are those people who have a hearing loss, who claim their identity as 'Deaf'', who associate with other Deaf people by choice and who use sign language as their principal language of interaction.

What do we mean sign language?

1.9 The sign language used in the UK and in Scotland is termed British Sign Language ( BSL). It is a visual-spatial language involving the hands, the body, the face, eyes and mouth as separate articulators. It has been identified and linguistically described - see Brennan (1992) or Kyle & Woll (1985) for more details. It is a rich and complex language with a unique grammar and lexicon, unrelated to English. It is capable of expression of all of the needs of its users.

1.10 Fingerspelling is a means of displaying individual letters of English on the hands in order to spell out proper names or locations. It was devised by hearing people but is now a part of sign language.

1.11 Deaf children with Deaf parents pass through the same process of acquisition of language at the same rate as hearing children do when learning to speak. There is no widely accepted written form for the language and as such it has only been researched and recorded recently when video recording has been widely available. Some descriptions of the language can be found in Britain over 400 years ago.

1.12 There are courses of instruction in BSL throughout the UK and there is a national curriculum for adult learning in three levels, leading to fluency which supports the status of trainee interpreter. To become an interpreter in BSL typically takes at least 4 years.

Deaf people in Europe

1.13 It is commonly believed (eg Pullen & Jones, 1987) that Deaf people underachieve in relation to their cognitive ability and need better service and support. However, Kyle and Allsop (1997) in a study of 17 countries in Europe reported that Deaf people saw the issue in terms of the right to their language for all transactions in daily life while, in contrast, hearing people saw sign language as an option, which was subject to needs assessment, financial analysis and targeted provision.

1.14 In comparative terms, the UK was relatively well off in statutory provision, in television, in research but not in interpreters - ie the access point for the Deaf community. Deaf people believed full-time interpreters existed (87%) but in emergencies, Deaf people were sceptical of having access through an interpreter - at hospital (22% said yes - low compared to other countries), if there was a car crash (9% yes - very low), if arrested by police (47% yes - low), in court (75% yes - lower than all but France), at work for a meeting (32% yes - low). Use of sign language in public transactions was very infrequent and only in the case of Deaf people married to other Deaf people was there likely to be sustained use of BSL throughout the week. Deaf people in the UK did not have confidence that they would be able to access public (or any services) though interpreters.

Deaf People in the UK

1.15 In Deaf People in the Community ( DPIC), a national examination of Deaf lifestyle, (Deaf Studies Trust, 1997-2002), a representative sample of 240 Deaf people from all over the UK, including Scotland, was interviewed seven times, in BSL. In terms of demography, the study produced a great deal of relevance to the description of the Deaf community.

Deaf community in outline

1.16 Deaf people are typically C2DE in terms of employment and socioeconomic status - ie fit into a pattern of job which is in the skilled trade to semi- and un-skilled areas of employment. However, recent changes in the community have created greater expectation of rights, language profile and greater demands on all public services.

1.17 Despite simple social perceptions, research on cognition indicates that Deaf people have the same level of intellect as hearing people. Despite reduction in deaf school provision (almost gone in Scotland) and reduced attendance at Deaf clubs, there is still a strong demand for association and sense of community and culture. The older community remains rooted in the Deaf Club while younger people are more likely to create their own peer groups in pubs and clubs. Deaf clubs still exist in all cities and are the point of contact for the BSL using community.

1.18 Deaf people tend to marry later and less, but marry other deaf (90%) most of the time. Deaf couples usually have hearing children (90%).

1.19 For Deaf people, a major issue has been the recognition of sign language. This was achieved in a Statement by the Department of Work & Pensions in 2003. However, as yet, there is no special action plan or provision. Sources of information in BSL are few and far between. Television, while apparently visual, does not provide meaningful access - because it arises in written or spoken language scripts and reflects a hearing culture. Subtitled video is of limited value for the majority of the community (Kyle, 1992, 'Switched On').

Characteristics of the Deaf community

1.20 Deaf people's lifestyle is changing as a result of the progress of society. Younger Deaf people (under 45 years) are now much more likely to be in professional or office jobs than their predecessors. This is part of a trend which is evident among hearing people also with the traditional jobs of Deaf people - eg carpentry, upholstery, shoemaking in great decline in the UK.

1.21 Deaf people now stay longer at school and are more likely to study for examinations. However, although there is improvement in the level of education reached by Deaf people, there is still a gap between Deaf and hearing (Figure 1.2)

1.22 A review commissioned by the Department for Education and Employment (Powers et al, 1998) concluded that they were not able to demonstrate a national improvement in educational performance among Deaf children since the last survey in 1979. Although there have been positive claims in regard to school performance, it has become increasingly complex to try to identify Deaf children in schools (as more and more are placed in mainstream classes) and correspondingly the task of creating matched samples for monitoring has also been very difficult (Tymms et al, 2003). In Scotland, the project "Achievement of Deaf Pupils" tends to confirm the view of Powers et al (1998) on the poor performance of Deaf children,

"Early results of the ADPS survey showed that by P7 deaf children were often underachieving and that deaf children had an average reading age of 9 years on leaving secondary school." (taken from the minutes of the Cross Party Group on Deafness, 26 ^th November 2003).

1.23 Significantly, the education that Deaf children receive is still almost wholly in English. Less prominence is given to learning sign language and both in the UK and in Europe, less than half of Deaf people actually learned sign language at the appropriate age - ie before five years old. Service provision must take into account the consequent variability in competence.

1.24 Further data shows that Deaf people still lag behind the hearing community in a wide range of social factors. These have an impact on, and are affected by, the quality of access which Deaf people have to public services.

Deaf and Public Services

1.25 Data on a number of public service areas are available for review in DPIC (2000); however the findings in health were striking. Compared to hearing people, Deaf people were much more likely to visit the GP (even though they disliked the experience); they were much more likely to be given prescriptions than hearing people; Deaf women had problems in alcohol use and younger Deaf people were more likely to smoke than their hearing peers.

1.26 Although 34% said they used text relay services to make an appointment, 23% asked a friend and 21% went themselves to the health centre, just to make the appointment. Ninety-one percent said that there was no one who could sign at the Health Centre.

1.27 Deaf people prepared in advance with 46% making notes before their visit to the GP. Interestingly, 39% tried to speak first and then gesture eg point to the pain. Around 44% asked for pen and paper and 43% spoke first and then wrote down. Some 21% used a sign language interpreter but 29% used family or friend to mediate and 44% tried to lip-read the doctor. When asked why Deaf people went to the doctor more than hearing people, 61% said it was because they did not understand the first time and had to go back to check.

1.28 There are serious causes for concern about the use of health services by Deaf people. This is likely to affect their quality of life directly.

Access to information

1.29 One solution to information access is translation of text from English into sign on video or the provision of live interpretation. In a study for the BBC (February 2003 Deaf Studies Trust) Deaf people were adamant that they did not want interpreters - their view was that all translation work should be done by Deaf people and that video/television programme production should be Deaf led and presented.

1.30 Video versions of information leaflets do not maintain the advantages of text. Providing a video version in BSL is similar to providing an audio recording of someone reading a report - often dense and inaccessible.

Interpreting Services

1.31 Typically, solutions to the problems of access are seen in terms of offering an intermediary who can use the language of Deaf people. Although in the early stages of the development of this provision, interpreting was carried out by social workers, teachers, children of Deaf parents and so on, the move to the national scheme began to formalise the procedure for qualification. Since the early 1980s, there has been a national system for training and assessing sign language interpreters. There are various levels in this process leading to the status of Registered Qualified Interpreter who is expected to be able to work in most settings. For those inside the field, this is a minimum level of qualification for effective work with Deaf people; typically this qualification will take four years to achieve.

1.32 Because of the time required for training, a range of other intermediaries also work with Deaf people as Communicators or support workers. These range from professionals in other fields who are fluent in BSL, to those who have limited training in BSL and who can be effective only in informal or one to one situations. It is not always obvious to Deaf or hearing people, which level of performance to expect from the intermediary. The person (Deaf or hearing) who books an interpreter or intermediary is often unable to monitor that performance and may make assumptions about the effectiveness of the transmission of information which does not match that of the other party in the transaction.

1.33 At present, there are too few qualified sign language interpreters.

"In conclusion, the research showed that there was a shortage of BSL/English interpreters in England, Scotland and Wales. The researchers believe that the knowledge of this shortage influenced Deaf people's use of the existing interpreting services: when, how often and under what circumstances an interpreter was used. The limited number of professional interpreters, the geographical variation in provision and the varying standards of interpreting skills held, as well as organisational problems in the provision of interpreting services, provides Deaf people with limited access to services and organisations." (Brien, Brown and Collins (2002) p 176)

1.34 These findings are likely to apply equally to Scotland.

Research Questions

1.35 There were four research questions in this study.

To what extent are BSL users able to access public services using BSL as their main form of communication? (Chapter 4)

What are BSL users' experiences in relation to attempts at access and using BSL to communicate with public service providers? (Chapter 5)

What alternative methods of communication are used when BSL is not available? (Chapter 6)

What alternative methods of communication would BSL users find useful when BSL interpreting is not available? (Chapter 6)

Because the third and fourth questions elicit the same response from the interviewees, they are treated together in the report and a further question was added to clarify the issues:

What alternative means of delivery of BSL access is useful to Deaf people? (Chapter 7)

BSL Access in Scotland

1.36 Despite the work which has been carried out in other regions and in Scotland as part of other studies, this is the first study which has been commissioned to examine the situation of Deaf people in their language access. It was carried out in a short period of time but has the potential to provide a clear picture of Deaf experiences and aspirations in this area.

« Previous | Contents | Next »