March 25, 2025 • 27 mins
Sam speaks to Associate Professor Louisa Willoughby, senior lecturer in linguistics at Monash University, about tactile Auslan and a series of workshops run by Monash through a short course for practitioners of Auslan looking to better serve the needs of the deafblind community.
We also hear from Powerd Media's Emma Myers, who catches up with CEO of Children and Young People with Disability, Skye Kakoschke-Moore, to give her thoughts on what she hopes to see in this week's federal budget regarding measures to benefit Australians with disabilities.
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Episode Transcript
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S1 (00:13):
From Vision Australia. This is talking vision. And now here's
your host Sam Colley.
S2 (00:23):
Hello, everyone. It's great to be here with you. And
for the next half hour we talk matters of blindness
and low vision.
S3 (00:30):
If the deaf blind person is only getting half the message,
they're going to have all of these problems, they're going
to have misunderstandings, and they're neither going to be taken
seriously nor understand important information that's being communicated to them.
So I think it's really important to build this recognition that, hey,
(00:51):
you know, deaf blind people have their own ways of signing,
and if you do it correctly, suddenly they understand things
and they can do things that otherwise are just, you know,
not happening. Well.
S2 (01:04):
Welcome to the program. This week we're speaking with senior
lecturer of linguistics at Monash University, Louisa Willoughby, who's catching
up with me to talk all about tactile Auslan and
a short course that Monash will be running later this
year to upskill practitioners of Auslan in Australia to better
(01:29):
serve the needs of the deafblind community. That interview is
coming up very shortly, so make sure to stick around
to hear more from Louisa. And then after my chat
with Louisa, we hear from Powered Media's Emma myers, who
spoke with Skye Kakoschke-moore, CEO of Children and Young People
(01:52):
with disability, about what she hopes will be included in
this year's federal budget. I hope you enjoy this week's
episode of Talking Vision. Louisa Willoughby is a senior lecturer
in linguistics at Monash University. Her work focuses on the
(02:14):
intersecting areas of language and identity. Language policy and service
provision for speakers of minority languages, particularly in health and
education settings. She's here today to talk to me about
tactile Auslan and a series of workshops and modules. Monash
(02:37):
University will be running later this year as part of
a short course to upskill Auslan interpreters to better service
the deafblind community. Louisa, welcome to Talking Vision. Thank you
very much for your time today.
S3 (02:54):
Thanks, Sam.
S2 (02:55):
Now, today we're here to talk a little bit about
tactile Auslan, as well as some accredited training that's coming
up in the pipeline over the next little while. But
before we get into the details around the training, let's
jump in to the details around tactile Auslan itself. So
(03:19):
could you give us a bit of an overview of
how tactile Auslan works?
S3 (03:24):
Yeah, sure. So tactile Auslan is a form of sign
language used by people who are both deaf and blind,
where they're putting their hands on top of the person
who's signing and feeling what's being signed. But as you
can imagine, that's not entirely foolproof. Sign languages like to
(03:48):
use facial expressions a lot to tell us things, so
you might furrow your brow to show that you're asking
a question. Or you might have a sort of happy
or a sad facial expression to show something of the
emotional evaluation of what's going on. All of that stuff
gets lost when you're just feeling a sign. And also
(04:10):
sign languages like to use pointing a lot and direction
a lot. So I might put someone in a signing
space and then, you know, Bob is on my left
and Jill is on my right. And if I'm signing that,
I emailed Jill. I don't sign her name, I just
sign in that direction. And this whole kind of working out,
(04:32):
what's being pointed out is, of course, a daily challenge
for anyone who's blind. And so things like this have
to change when you're using a tactile form of Auslan,
rather than what I'll just call visual Auslan, but is
the sort of the normal deaf Auslan that people use.
S2 (04:52):
How have practitioners of tactile Auslan gone about bridging those
gaps in the past, how much sort of success has
there been in terms of adding those little pieces of
information in other ways and adapting the language in that way?
(05:13):
Has there been much success in that regard?
S3 (05:17):
Look, I think it's been very ad hoc. So most
people who are tactile signers started life as deaf people
with at least some vision and sort of learnt the
visual language and then through things like retinitis pigmentosa, have
lost their sight over the years and have sort of
moved to this tactile way of signing. And so for
(05:40):
both the deafblind people and the people supporting them, it's
often just been very ad hoc as a learning process
of what works. So there's not a there hasn't been
any official training in Australia about how to use tactile
Auslan with deafblind people. What's just tended to happen is
(06:02):
people have been either employed as support workers for deafblind
people and learnt to work with them or for whatever reasons,
have been an Auslan interpreter who's like, yeah, I'm going
to give this a go. And then, you know, might
build up a relationship working with and interpreting for a
specific deafblind person and sort of coming up with some
(06:25):
strategies over the years, but really, really ad hoc in
terms of how people solve these problems.
S2 (06:34):
And following on from that, Louisa, I think there is
a really important topic around greater awareness of tactile Auslan.
So I'm interested to get your perspective around the importance
of raising awareness of language like tactile Auslan and enabling
(06:55):
people around Australia and all the world in some respects
to understand a fair bit more about it.
S3 (07:03):
Yeah. And look, I think it's one of these things
where awareness raising is really important to know that, yeah,
it is its own skill, but also so that people
realise that, oh, if I'm working with a deaf blind
person and I'm not doing this stuff, or I've got
(07:25):
an interpreter who's just an Auslan interpreter but doesn't know
tactile Auslan especially well that if the deaf blind person
then comes out of it a bit confused or says
the wrong thing or things like that, you know, we
so often judge people as just, oh, this person's a
bit slow, they're a bit stupid, they're not very competent.
(07:46):
All of these things because we assume that the communication
has been flawless. But of course, if the deaf blind
person is only getting half the message, they're going to
have all of these problems, they're going to have misunderstandings,
and they're neither going to be taken seriously nor understand
(08:06):
important information that's being communicated to them. So I think
it's really important to build this recognition that, hey, you know, deaf,
blind people have their own ways of signing, and if
you do it correctly, suddenly they understand things and they
can do things that otherwise are just, you know, not happening.
S2 (08:30):
Well, people listening out there may be thinking now and then,
you know, I would really like to know a bit
more about Auslan. And then the jump on top of that,
getting into tactile Auslan, what would you say is the
biggest jump from people who have perhaps learned a spoken
(08:53):
language as a second or third language, and then that
jump between the spoken language to the sign language, like
Auslan and then tactile Auslan on top of that. What
are the biggest things for people to be aware of
as they jump in to, you know, learn the language
and interpret for people out there in the deafblind community?
S3 (09:16):
Look, I think one of the things that comes up
a lot with sign languages is that people, for some reason,
tend to think that sign languages aren't real languages in
the same way that spoken languages are. So there are
lots of surveys that have been done with people who
are studying sign languages at university where, you know, the
(09:39):
majority of students will say something like, oh, yeah, you know,
sign languages are really just sort of English on the
hands or something like that, where, you know, of course
they're totally not. They have their own grammar, they have
their own word order, they have all their own different
ways of doing things. And there are yeah, there are
words in English that might have 2 or 3 different
(10:02):
signs that are the same thing, depending on exactly what
the meaning of the word is. And there are, of course,
other words in English where you might have 2 or
3 words in English that are just the one Auslan sign.
So often it's this whole getting over this mindset that no,
they are actually real languages, but then also to getting
(10:25):
into the fact that you have to pay attention to
a whole new range of articulators. So yeah, we're used
to listening carefully to words and working out that, you know,
P and B are different, you know, different sounds or,
you know, sounds are different sounds, but we're not used
(10:49):
to necessarily paying attention that someone's got their finger extended,
their index finger extended like they're pointing, and now they've
just hooked that finger a little. And that that difference
between a straight out point and a hooked point might
be meaningful. And we're also not necessarily used to showing
(11:10):
grammatical markers on our faces. So as sighted people will
often have expressions of surprise or happiness or something like that.
But we're not used to this idea that we might
always sort of furrow our brow for a question, or
always smile when we say the word happy, or when
(11:30):
we sign the word happy. So those sorts of things
are an adjustment. And then for the deafblind side of things,
I think people who are both sighted and hearing often
have this real sort of adjustment of just what do
I need to be doing to make my signing clear?
So if someone's trying to feel what I'm signing, how
(11:54):
I need to change all of that to suddenly be
a lot clearer when it's perfectly clear visually. And what
do I need to include? So just like with audio
description for blind people, for deaf blind people, they sort
of need a sense of who's in the room, what's
going on in the room? Are there people asking them
with hands up, asking questions, all of that kind of stuff?
(12:17):
And so just remembering to include that is important and
challenging for many people.
S2 (12:24):
In amongst that is the need for an increased number
of tactile Auslan interpreters to provide such a service like
this and be able to enable people who are from
the deaf blind community to communicate more openly with more
people and have that bridge between conversation partners when they're
(12:48):
trying to communicate important information to one another. So let's
talk a bit about that need for an increased number
of interpreters.
S3 (12:59):
Absolutely. And so at the moment, if you want an
in-person interpreter or you normally need, of course, two interpreters
because they'll swap every ten minutes or so, it's important
with tactile signing, people need to swap very regularly because
the pressure of sort of having someone's hands on your
hands while you're signing, even if they're sort of super
(13:21):
light and super gentle, can cause shoulder injuries if you
do it for too long at a time. So to
get two tactile Auslan interpreters at an event in person,
we're often booking two months in advance at the moment,
Whereas I can rock up and say, hey, I want
a sign language interpreter online and I can normally get
(13:44):
one tomorrow. So yeah, it's a really big skill shortage
and shortage of people who can and will do this
work at the moment. So very important and as you say,
really important for inclusion as well because, you know, deaf
blind people are doubly isolated. You know, blind people can
(14:09):
access telephones and always have been able to and have
radio and various ways of connecting with each other. And
Braille deaf people have these days, video phones. Deaf blind
people have often had a school experience that hasn't left
them with wonderful literacy. They've often become blind late in
life as well. So a number of them are not
(14:32):
really fluent Braille readers. They can't use a video phone
to sign with people. They can't use a normal phone
to call with people, so they're just at huge risk
of being really socially isolated.
S2 (14:47):
And this is where the accredited training comes in to
boost the numbers of tactile Auslan interpreters around Australia. So
let's get a bit of an overview of the accredited
training for people out there.
S3 (15:04):
Yeah. So this is something that's very very new to Australia.
And that doesn't happen in a lot of parts of
the world either. So I think, you know, Norway and
Sweden are two of the only places currently where people
are really being routinely trained as deafblind interpreters. But what
(15:25):
we're planning on doing is we have a four part
module for the training. The first part is stuff that
a lot of people will have already done and we'll
be able to get prior learning for. And that's around
some of these basic introduction to deafblindness units or courses
that are offered. So for example, Deafblind Victoria at the
(15:47):
moment offer a kind of introduction to Deafblindness day. So
for people who haven't already done that, we'll have some
pathways for them. But many of the people coming into
the course will have that basic knowledge about Deafblindness. Then
they'll come to us for a two day weekend workshop
(16:09):
of hands on training, of course, quite literally hands on,
where we're working through some of these strategies and, you know,
with a focus on tactile Auslan, but also looking at
other ways that deafblind people sign. So for folk with
Usher's syndrome, they'll often use what's sometimes called restricted visual
(16:29):
frame signing or close signing. So where what, you're really
trying to hold the hands in a very tight envelope
where they can still see them. And so overview of
the techniques to use with all of this. Then people
go out into the world for a month or two.
They do some jobs working as deafblind interpreters and reflect
(16:49):
on those. They do some readings with us and some
ethics based training about some of the ethical issues in
working with deafblind. And then they come back to us
for a final weekend training, where we debrief around some
of the stuff they've been doing, problem solve, and talk
a little bit more about some of the working as
(17:11):
a team of tactile interpreters.
S2 (17:14):
Let's go into the details of how and where and
when the training sessions will be delivered. If you have
that information. Yet, I understand it's still in some ways
in the pipeline, and you might not have all the
details at hand as we speak, but how can people
(17:38):
keep in touch? To find out more about the sessions,
if they'd like to take part and skill up in
such an important area?
S3 (17:49):
Yeah, excellent. So we're planning on running the weekend workshops
in July and September, and they will this year just
be in Melbourne. But we're talking about options to roll
out better nationally in the future. So in order to
come to these workshops, people do need to already hold
(18:11):
a naati qualification as either an Auslan interpreter, a provisional
Auslan interpreter, or an ATI deaf interpreter. And if people
would like to be on the waiting list, or it's
not so much a waiting list, but be added to
the list of people who are told about the formal
application process. They can do that just by emailing me. Louisa. Louisa.
(18:37):
Dot Willoughby w I l l o u g h
b y@monash.edu, and we'll make sure that you're sent all
the information you need to register your interest when the
time comes.
S2 (18:52):
Perfect. I've been speaking today with Associate Professor Louisa Willoughby,
Senior Lecturer at Monash University, here to chat to me
today all about tactile Auslan and a short course featuring
a series of modules and workshops run through Monash University
(19:15):
on offer later this year for accredited Auslan interpreters to
skill up in tactile Auslan. Louisa, thank you so much
for your time today. Great to catch up with you.
S3 (19:29):
Thank you.
S2 (19:35):
I'm Sam Cully and you're listening to Talking Vision. On
Vision Australia Radio, associated stations of Reading Radio and the
Community Radio Network. I hope you enjoyed that conversation there
with Louisa Willoughby. If you missed any part of that
conversation with Louisa or you would love to hear it again.
(19:58):
Talking vision is available on the Vision Australia Radio website.
Simply head to VA radio.org. That's VA radio all one
word.org to find more episodes. You can also find Talking
Vision on the podcast app of your choice or through
(20:19):
the Vision Australia Library on the evening of Tuesday the
25th of March, the federal budget. The fourth of this
current government will be handed down. So what will it
mean for the disability community and how will it affect
their day to day lives? Powered Media's Emma myers spoke
(20:39):
with Skye Kakoschke-moore, CEO of Children and Young People with disability,
about what she hopes will be included in the budget.
Emma began by asking Skye to highlight what she hopes
will be included in this year's budget, in terms of
measures to benefit the disability community.
S4 (21:03):
It's cider. We made a pre-budget submission and very broadly speaking,
the themes that we centred our submission on were investment
in a truly inclusive education system for children and young
people with disability, um, investment in a fair, safe and
accessible NDIS system, as well as foundational supports and all
(21:27):
supports really inside and outside of the NDIS. We're also
calling on the government to address the unemployment and underemployment
of young people with disability, as this is really closely
linked to the significant cost of living pressures that many
in the country are experiencing right now. And finally, we've
(21:48):
called for an increase in investment in individual advocacy services,
specifically for children and young people with disability. We know
that with all of the changes that are happening to
the NDIS, and the fact that foundational supports are still
a concept and not yet a reality, there's likely to
be an increase in children and young people who aren't
(22:11):
receiving or can't access the support they need. So the
demand on in the demand on individual advocacy is only
going to grow.
S5 (22:19):
And what would you like to see in the realm
of foundation or support?
S4 (22:24):
From my conversations with children and young people and their families,
we've heard about the importance of peer networks as a
form of connection, as a form of sharing information, but
also as a way that self-advocacy skills are often built. Um,
these peer networks, traditionally, um, some have received funding from
(22:45):
the federal government, some may pop up quite informally, and
we've had some discussions with the community about some of
those initiatives that might be operating now, but don't receive
any or receive very little government funding. And so when
we made our submission about foundational supports, we recommended the
government implement what we called a grassroots connector funding model,
(23:09):
which would enable the government to fund larger organizations that
meet the legal requirements that have the board set up
that understand how to manage risk funds. Those organizations who
will then pass on smaller amounts of funding to those
initiatives that have been initiated by the local community. So
(23:30):
they're really driven by local demand. So it might be,
you know, a drop in, um, type center arrangement, or
it might be a peer network or it might be, um,
a website or a social media group that's really taken off.
Those organizations, um, or the people running them often can't
apply for government funding on their own because they don't
(23:52):
have those things, like a proper board set up and
risk management frameworks in place. So we think that this
grassroots connector model would be a way that the government
could fund those locally driven initiatives in a way that's
supported by larger organizations who can help with things like
compliance and reporting.
S5 (24:08):
And so what are you hoping to see on budget night?
S4 (24:14):
I like to think of myself as a bit of
an eternal optimist. And so if I put my hope
that on, what I'm hoping to see is recognition from
the government that the NDA is here to stay, that
we're going to have a national disability Insurance scheme that
is funded in order to meet the support needs of
children and young people with disability. Um, I'm really hoping
(24:38):
to see some stronger signals from the government about how
much Commonwealth funding is going to be delivered to support
foundational supports, and potentially even some more detail about what
those sorts of supports or services will be funded through
foundational supports. That's still a big question mark at the moment. Um,
I would love to see some funding in there, um,
(25:00):
towards more inclusion in schools. So this could look like, um,
an increased funding from the Commonwealth to do something like
a national roadmap for inclusive education, which was one of
the recommendations from the Disability Royal Commission. Um, and one
other thing that site has called for is the establishment
(25:21):
of a national oversight body that would ensure that education
providers at all levels are meeting their inclusion obligations to students. Um,
it would also be great to see, um, increased funding
for individual advocacy. As I said earlier, we're just seeing
that there's a huge amount of unmet demand currently. And
that's going that's going to grow. Um, we would also
(25:44):
love to see an increase to the rate of the
disability support pension. Like, I know from our conversations with
young people and also talking to organisations that do individual
advocacy with young people, um, getting access to the DSP
is a huge issue. Um, so at least seeing the
rate of that increase would, would be a step in
(26:06):
the right direction.
S2 (26:13):
And that's all the time we have for today. You've
been listening to Talking Vision. Talking vision is a Vision
Australia radio production. Thanks to all involved with putting the
show together every week. And remember, we love hearing from you.
So please get in touch any time on our email
at Talking Vision. At Vision australia.org. That's talking vision all
(26:37):
one word at Vision australia.org. But until next week it's
Sam Coley saying bye for now.
S1 (26:47):
You can contact Vision Australia by phoning us anytime during
business hours on 1300Â 847Â 406. That's 1300Â 847Â 486 or by visiting Vision australia.org.
That's Vision australia.org.
From Vision Australia. This is talking vision. And now here's
your host Sam Colley.
S2 (00:23):
Hello, everyone. It's great to be here with you. And
for the next half hour we talk matters of blindness
and low vision.
S3 (00:30):
If the deaf blind person is only getting half the message,
they're going to have all of these problems, they're going
to have misunderstandings, and they're neither going to be taken
seriously nor understand important information that's being communicated to them.
So I think it's really important to build this recognition that, hey,
(00:51):
you know, deaf blind people have their own ways of signing,
and if you do it correctly, suddenly they understand things
and they can do things that otherwise are just, you know,
not happening. Well.
S2 (01:04):
Welcome to the program. This week we're speaking with senior
lecturer of linguistics at Monash University, Louisa Willoughby, who's catching
up with me to talk all about tactile Auslan and
a short course that Monash will be running later this
year to upskill practitioners of Auslan in Australia to better
(01:29):
serve the needs of the deafblind community. That interview is
coming up very shortly, so make sure to stick around
to hear more from Louisa. And then after my chat
with Louisa, we hear from Powered Media's Emma myers, who
spoke with Skye Kakoschke-moore, CEO of Children and Young People
(01:52):
with disability, about what she hopes will be included in
this year's federal budget. I hope you enjoy this week's
episode of Talking Vision. Louisa Willoughby is a senior lecturer
in linguistics at Monash University. Her work focuses on the
(02:14):
intersecting areas of language and identity. Language policy and service
provision for speakers of minority languages, particularly in health and
education settings. She's here today to talk to me about
tactile Auslan and a series of workshops and modules. Monash
(02:37):
University will be running later this year as part of
a short course to upskill Auslan interpreters to better service
the deafblind community. Louisa, welcome to Talking Vision. Thank you
very much for your time today.
S3 (02:54):
Thanks, Sam.
S2 (02:55):
Now, today we're here to talk a little bit about
tactile Auslan, as well as some accredited training that's coming
up in the pipeline over the next little while. But
before we get into the details around the training, let's
jump in to the details around tactile Auslan itself. So
(03:19):
could you give us a bit of an overview of
how tactile Auslan works?
S3 (03:24):
Yeah, sure. So tactile Auslan is a form of sign
language used by people who are both deaf and blind,
where they're putting their hands on top of the person
who's signing and feeling what's being signed. But as you
can imagine, that's not entirely foolproof. Sign languages like to
(03:48):
use facial expressions a lot to tell us things, so
you might furrow your brow to show that you're asking
a question. Or you might have a sort of happy
or a sad facial expression to show something of the
emotional evaluation of what's going on. All of that stuff
gets lost when you're just feeling a sign. And also
(04:10):
sign languages like to use pointing a lot and direction
a lot. So I might put someone in a signing
space and then, you know, Bob is on my left
and Jill is on my right. And if I'm signing that,
I emailed Jill. I don't sign her name, I just
sign in that direction. And this whole kind of working out,
(04:32):
what's being pointed out is, of course, a daily challenge
for anyone who's blind. And so things like this have
to change when you're using a tactile form of Auslan,
rather than what I'll just call visual Auslan, but is
the sort of the normal deaf Auslan that people use.
S2 (04:52):
How have practitioners of tactile Auslan gone about bridging those
gaps in the past, how much sort of success has
there been in terms of adding those little pieces of
information in other ways and adapting the language in that way?
(05:13):
Has there been much success in that regard?
S3 (05:17):
Look, I think it's been very ad hoc. So most
people who are tactile signers started life as deaf people
with at least some vision and sort of learnt the
visual language and then through things like retinitis pigmentosa, have
lost their sight over the years and have sort of
moved to this tactile way of signing. And so for
(05:40):
both the deafblind people and the people supporting them, it's
often just been very ad hoc as a learning process
of what works. So there's not a there hasn't been
any official training in Australia about how to use tactile
Auslan with deafblind people. What's just tended to happen is
(06:02):
people have been either employed as support workers for deafblind
people and learnt to work with them or for whatever reasons,
have been an Auslan interpreter who's like, yeah, I'm going
to give this a go. And then, you know, might
build up a relationship working with and interpreting for a
specific deafblind person and sort of coming up with some
(06:25):
strategies over the years, but really, really ad hoc in
terms of how people solve these problems.
S2 (06:34):
And following on from that, Louisa, I think there is
a really important topic around greater awareness of tactile Auslan.
So I'm interested to get your perspective around the importance
of raising awareness of language like tactile Auslan and enabling
(06:55):
people around Australia and all the world in some respects
to understand a fair bit more about it.
S3 (07:03):
Yeah. And look, I think it's one of these things
where awareness raising is really important to know that, yeah,
it is its own skill, but also so that people
realise that, oh, if I'm working with a deaf blind
person and I'm not doing this stuff, or I've got
(07:25):
an interpreter who's just an Auslan interpreter but doesn't know
tactile Auslan especially well that if the deaf blind person
then comes out of it a bit confused or says
the wrong thing or things like that, you know, we
so often judge people as just, oh, this person's a
bit slow, they're a bit stupid, they're not very competent.
(07:46):
All of these things because we assume that the communication
has been flawless. But of course, if the deaf blind
person is only getting half the message, they're going to
have all of these problems, they're going to have misunderstandings,
and they're neither going to be taken seriously nor understand
(08:06):
important information that's being communicated to them. So I think
it's really important to build this recognition that, hey, you know, deaf,
blind people have their own ways of signing, and if
you do it correctly, suddenly they understand things and they
can do things that otherwise are just, you know, not happening.
S2 (08:30):
Well, people listening out there may be thinking now and then,
you know, I would really like to know a bit
more about Auslan. And then the jump on top of that,
getting into tactile Auslan, what would you say is the
biggest jump from people who have perhaps learned a spoken
(08:53):
language as a second or third language, and then that
jump between the spoken language to the sign language, like
Auslan and then tactile Auslan on top of that. What
are the biggest things for people to be aware of
as they jump in to, you know, learn the language
and interpret for people out there in the deafblind community?
S3 (09:16):
Look, I think one of the things that comes up
a lot with sign languages is that people, for some reason,
tend to think that sign languages aren't real languages in
the same way that spoken languages are. So there are
lots of surveys that have been done with people who
are studying sign languages at university where, you know, the
(09:39):
majority of students will say something like, oh, yeah, you know,
sign languages are really just sort of English on the
hands or something like that, where, you know, of course
they're totally not. They have their own grammar, they have
their own word order, they have all their own different
ways of doing things. And there are yeah, there are
words in English that might have 2 or 3 different
(10:02):
signs that are the same thing, depending on exactly what
the meaning of the word is. And there are, of course,
other words in English where you might have 2 or
3 words in English that are just the one Auslan sign.
So often it's this whole getting over this mindset that no,
they are actually real languages, but then also to getting
(10:25):
into the fact that you have to pay attention to
a whole new range of articulators. So yeah, we're used
to listening carefully to words and working out that, you know,
P and B are different, you know, different sounds or,
you know, sounds are different sounds, but we're not used
(10:49):
to necessarily paying attention that someone's got their finger extended,
their index finger extended like they're pointing, and now they've
just hooked that finger a little. And that that difference
between a straight out point and a hooked point might
be meaningful. And we're also not necessarily used to showing
(11:10):
grammatical markers on our faces. So as sighted people will
often have expressions of surprise or happiness or something like that.
But we're not used to this idea that we might
always sort of furrow our brow for a question, or
always smile when we say the word happy, or when
(11:30):
we sign the word happy. So those sorts of things
are an adjustment. And then for the deafblind side of things,
I think people who are both sighted and hearing often
have this real sort of adjustment of just what do
I need to be doing to make my signing clear?
So if someone's trying to feel what I'm signing, how
(11:54):
I need to change all of that to suddenly be
a lot clearer when it's perfectly clear visually. And what
do I need to include? So just like with audio
description for blind people, for deaf blind people, they sort
of need a sense of who's in the room, what's
going on in the room? Are there people asking them
with hands up, asking questions, all of that kind of stuff?
(12:17):
And so just remembering to include that is important and
challenging for many people.
S2 (12:24):
In amongst that is the need for an increased number
of tactile Auslan interpreters to provide such a service like
this and be able to enable people who are from
the deaf blind community to communicate more openly with more
people and have that bridge between conversation partners when they're
(12:48):
trying to communicate important information to one another. So let's
talk a bit about that need for an increased number
of interpreters.
S3 (12:59):
Absolutely. And so at the moment, if you want an
in-person interpreter or you normally need, of course, two interpreters
because they'll swap every ten minutes or so, it's important
with tactile signing, people need to swap very regularly because
the pressure of sort of having someone's hands on your
hands while you're signing, even if they're sort of super
(13:21):
light and super gentle, can cause shoulder injuries if you
do it for too long at a time. So to
get two tactile Auslan interpreters at an event in person,
we're often booking two months in advance at the moment,
Whereas I can rock up and say, hey, I want
a sign language interpreter online and I can normally get
(13:44):
one tomorrow. So yeah, it's a really big skill shortage
and shortage of people who can and will do this
work at the moment. So very important and as you say,
really important for inclusion as well because, you know, deaf
blind people are doubly isolated. You know, blind people can
(14:09):
access telephones and always have been able to and have
radio and various ways of connecting with each other. And
Braille deaf people have these days, video phones. Deaf blind
people have often had a school experience that hasn't left
them with wonderful literacy. They've often become blind late in
life as well. So a number of them are not
(14:32):
really fluent Braille readers. They can't use a video phone
to sign with people. They can't use a normal phone
to call with people, so they're just at huge risk
of being really socially isolated.
S2 (14:47):
And this is where the accredited training comes in to
boost the numbers of tactile Auslan interpreters around Australia. So
let's get a bit of an overview of the accredited
training for people out there.
S3 (15:04):
Yeah. So this is something that's very very new to Australia.
And that doesn't happen in a lot of parts of
the world either. So I think, you know, Norway and
Sweden are two of the only places currently where people
are really being routinely trained as deafblind interpreters. But what
(15:25):
we're planning on doing is we have a four part
module for the training. The first part is stuff that
a lot of people will have already done and we'll
be able to get prior learning for. And that's around
some of these basic introduction to deafblindness units or courses
that are offered. So for example, Deafblind Victoria at the
(15:47):
moment offer a kind of introduction to Deafblindness day. So
for people who haven't already done that, we'll have some
pathways for them. But many of the people coming into
the course will have that basic knowledge about Deafblindness. Then
they'll come to us for a two day weekend workshop
(16:09):
of hands on training, of course, quite literally hands on,
where we're working through some of these strategies and, you know,
with a focus on tactile Auslan, but also looking at
other ways that deafblind people sign. So for folk with
Usher's syndrome, they'll often use what's sometimes called restricted visual
(16:29):
frame signing or close signing. So where what, you're really
trying to hold the hands in a very tight envelope
where they can still see them. And so overview of
the techniques to use with all of this. Then people
go out into the world for a month or two.
They do some jobs working as deafblind interpreters and reflect
(16:49):
on those. They do some readings with us and some
ethics based training about some of the ethical issues in
working with deafblind. And then they come back to us
for a final weekend training, where we debrief around some
of the stuff they've been doing, problem solve, and talk
a little bit more about some of the working as
(17:11):
a team of tactile interpreters.
S2 (17:14):
Let's go into the details of how and where and
when the training sessions will be delivered. If you have
that information. Yet, I understand it's still in some ways
in the pipeline, and you might not have all the
details at hand as we speak, but how can people
(17:38):
keep in touch? To find out more about the sessions,
if they'd like to take part and skill up in
such an important area?
S3 (17:49):
Yeah, excellent. So we're planning on running the weekend workshops
in July and September, and they will this year just
be in Melbourne. But we're talking about options to roll
out better nationally in the future. So in order to
come to these workshops, people do need to already hold
(18:11):
a naati qualification as either an Auslan interpreter, a provisional
Auslan interpreter, or an ATI deaf interpreter. And if people
would like to be on the waiting list, or it's
not so much a waiting list, but be added to
the list of people who are told about the formal
application process. They can do that just by emailing me. Louisa. Louisa.
(18:37):
Dot Willoughby w I l l o u g h
b y@monash.edu, and we'll make sure that you're sent all
the information you need to register your interest when the
time comes.
S2 (18:52):
Perfect. I've been speaking today with Associate Professor Louisa Willoughby,
Senior Lecturer at Monash University, here to chat to me
today all about tactile Auslan and a short course featuring
a series of modules and workshops run through Monash University
(19:15):
on offer later this year for accredited Auslan interpreters to
skill up in tactile Auslan. Louisa, thank you so much
for your time today. Great to catch up with you.
S3 (19:29):
Thank you.
S2 (19:35):
I'm Sam Cully and you're listening to Talking Vision. On
Vision Australia Radio, associated stations of Reading Radio and the
Community Radio Network. I hope you enjoyed that conversation there
with Louisa Willoughby. If you missed any part of that
conversation with Louisa or you would love to hear it again.
(19:58):
Talking vision is available on the Vision Australia Radio website.
Simply head to VA radio.org. That's VA radio all one
word.org to find more episodes. You can also find Talking
Vision on the podcast app of your choice or through
(20:19):
the Vision Australia Library on the evening of Tuesday the
25th of March, the federal budget. The fourth of this
current government will be handed down. So what will it
mean for the disability community and how will it affect
their day to day lives? Powered Media's Emma myers spoke
(20:39):
with Skye Kakoschke-moore, CEO of Children and Young People with disability,
about what she hopes will be included in the budget.
Emma began by asking Skye to highlight what she hopes
will be included in this year's budget, in terms of
measures to benefit the disability community.
S4 (21:03):
It's cider. We made a pre-budget submission and very broadly speaking,
the themes that we centred our submission on were investment
in a truly inclusive education system for children and young
people with disability, um, investment in a fair, safe and
accessible NDIS system, as well as foundational supports and all
(21:27):
supports really inside and outside of the NDIS. We're also
calling on the government to address the unemployment and underemployment
of young people with disability, as this is really closely
linked to the significant cost of living pressures that many
in the country are experiencing right now. And finally, we've
(21:48):
called for an increase in investment in individual advocacy services,
specifically for children and young people with disability. We know
that with all of the changes that are happening to
the NDIS, and the fact that foundational supports are still
a concept and not yet a reality, there's likely to
be an increase in children and young people who aren't
(22:11):
receiving or can't access the support they need. So the
demand on in the demand on individual advocacy is only
going to grow.
S5 (22:19):
And what would you like to see in the realm
of foundation or support?
S4 (22:24):
From my conversations with children and young people and their families,
we've heard about the importance of peer networks as a
form of connection, as a form of sharing information, but
also as a way that self-advocacy skills are often built. Um,
these peer networks, traditionally, um, some have received funding from
(22:45):
the federal government, some may pop up quite informally, and
we've had some discussions with the community about some of
those initiatives that might be operating now, but don't receive
any or receive very little government funding. And so when
we made our submission about foundational supports, we recommended the
government implement what we called a grassroots connector funding model,
(23:09):
which would enable the government to fund larger organizations that
meet the legal requirements that have the board set up
that understand how to manage risk funds. Those organizations who
will then pass on smaller amounts of funding to those
initiatives that have been initiated by the local community. So
(23:30):
they're really driven by local demand. So it might be,
you know, a drop in, um, type center arrangement, or
it might be a peer network or it might be, um,
a website or a social media group that's really taken off.
Those organizations, um, or the people running them often can't
apply for government funding on their own because they don't
(23:52):
have those things, like a proper board set up and
risk management frameworks in place. So we think that this
grassroots connector model would be a way that the government
could fund those locally driven initiatives in a way that's
supported by larger organizations who can help with things like
compliance and reporting.
S5 (24:08):
And so what are you hoping to see on budget night?
S4 (24:14):
I like to think of myself as a bit of
an eternal optimist. And so if I put my hope
that on, what I'm hoping to see is recognition from
the government that the NDA is here to stay, that
we're going to have a national disability Insurance scheme that
is funded in order to meet the support needs of
children and young people with disability. Um, I'm really hoping
(24:38):
to see some stronger signals from the government about how
much Commonwealth funding is going to be delivered to support
foundational supports, and potentially even some more detail about what
those sorts of supports or services will be funded through
foundational supports. That's still a big question mark at the moment. Um,
I would love to see some funding in there, um,
(25:00):
towards more inclusion in schools. So this could look like, um,
an increased funding from the Commonwealth to do something like
a national roadmap for inclusive education, which was one of
the recommendations from the Disability Royal Commission. Um, and one
other thing that site has called for is the establishment
(25:21):
of a national oversight body that would ensure that education
providers at all levels are meeting their inclusion obligations to students. Um,
it would also be great to see, um, increased funding
for individual advocacy. As I said earlier, we're just seeing
that there's a huge amount of unmet demand currently. And
that's going that's going to grow. Um, we would also
(25:44):
love to see an increase to the rate of the
disability support pension. Like, I know from our conversations with
young people and also talking to organisations that do individual
advocacy with young people, um, getting access to the DSP
is a huge issue. Um, so at least seeing the
rate of that increase would, would be a step in
(26:06):
the right direction.
S2 (26:13):
And that's all the time we have for today. You've
been listening to Talking Vision. Talking vision is a Vision
Australia radio production. Thanks to all involved with putting the
show together every week. And remember, we love hearing from you.
So please get in touch any time on our email
at Talking Vision. At Vision australia.org. That's talking vision all
(26:37):
one word at Vision australia.org. But until next week it's
Sam Coley saying bye for now.
S1 (26:47):
You can contact Vision Australia by phoning us anytime during
business hours on 1300Â 847Â 406. That's 1300Â 847Â 486 or by visiting Vision australia.org.
That's Vision australia.org.
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