What is commonly seen with sign language interpretation are teams of two. This team of two interpreters switch at given times during an event, not only for mental accuracy but with a teammate the “on” interpreter may need a feed or correction if something is misheard or not heard. This occurs  when the same sign language of the country is used (EX: United States=American Sign Language, Finland= Finnish Sign Language, Spain= Spanish Sign Language,etc).

An IS team is comprised of Deaf interpreters with their respective hearing interpreter counterparts who provide spoken information (the “feed”) in their common sign language which for our purposes is more often than not, American Sign Language. Spoken language is interpreted into sign to the Deaf interpreter who translates the information into IS interpreter for the audience.

The  Deaf/Hearing interpreters work as one unit and thus another team of Deaf/Hearing interpreters is required to switch with the first team.  To have one team of Deaf/Hearing for an event (1.5 hrs)  is taxing physically and mentally; not best practice. 

The Deaf/Hearing teams that contract with All HANDS IN MOTION (AHiM) are accredited by the World Federation of the Deaf and World Federation of the Deaf (WFD-WASLI International Accreditation System). Our lead interpreters are top in the field who guide AHiM on building our teams keeping AHiM unique; leaders in the provision of IS in New York.