Tips on communicating with Deaf people this New Zealand Sign Language Week
Fire and Emergency is celebrating New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) Week from 10-16 May in support of diversity and inclusion.
To help you embrace NZSL, Nick Linton, an experienced firefighter with hearing loss and a cochlear implant, is providing our people with some hints and tips on communicating with Deaf people:
- Remember that Deaf people rely on vision; their language is a visual language that involves reading lips as well as non-verbal cues. Always face the person for the conversation to be effective. If you turn away, you are effectively breaking the conversation.
- Assume they are intelligent and competent until proven otherwise. Deaf doesn’t mean dumb.
- There’s no need to shout. Just speak clearly, confidently and repeat if needed. If you still aren’t having any luck, then try rephrasing the sentence.
- Ensure there is enough lighting during the interaction. If it is during the night, then it may be a matter of ushering the person under the flood lights of the pump panel to have the conversation.
- Use a whiteboard or the back of a hazmat board to write things down if need be.
NZSL is one of New Zealand’s two official languages. It’s important for us to know some sign, and importantly for our operational people to recognise when someone is Deaf and uses sign as their native language.
If you’d like to get involved, there are plenty of resources available to help you, including 25 Signs to Learn at Work(external link).
To mark the end of the week, you’ll be able to test your sign language knowledge with a quiz, which you can do in your teams as an individual or team, and will be available on the Portal.