Through our consultants, researchers, clinicians, interpreters, transliterators and programs, VLA aims to apply evidence-based research to advancing the right and opportunity for those who are deaf or hard-of-hearing to access, process, acquire, and use visual language.
Deaf children have little power to affect change. As with all children, the quality of their daily lives and the futures that await them rest on the knowledge, skills, and abilities of others. When those others decide to place deaf children in a classroom with hearing children, the common result is a mismatch between access and needs. Deaf and hearing children have the same needs. But their access is often quite different. Without standards to guide those whose charge is to provide it, equal access opportunity often eludes.
In 1988, that reality became clear to us. It motivated us to develop standards applicable to all who interpret and transliterate for deaf children in a hearing mainstream. It prompted us to delineate a code of conduct and to formulate a nationally recognized evaluation tool. And it drove us to create graduate and undergraduate college coursework as well as materials to train educational interpreters and transliterators nationwide.
Today the realities facing deaf children and the adults they become are even more clear to us. For us, bringing language into focus is much more than a slogan. It’s a lifetime commitment to helping others achieve their vision.
– Earl Fleetwood and Melanie Metzger
Melanie Metzger, Ph.D,, CT, TSC
Dr. Metzger serves as professor in the Department of Interpretation at Gallaudet University. She holds a master of arts degree in ASL linguistics from Gallaudet and a doctoral degree in Sociolinguistics from Georgetown University. Her doctoral dissertation is an empirically-based examination of power and neutrality issues in the field of interpretation. Dr. Metzger is co-founder of the Testing, Evaluation, and Certification Unit (TECUnit), the national certifying body for cued language transliterators in the United States. She served on the TECUnit’s original certification development team. Dr. Metzger also serves as co-editor of the Studies in Interpretation Series, published by Gallaudet University Press.
Earl Fleetwood, M.A., CI/CT, TSC
Mr. Fleetwood serves in private practice as a dually certified signed language interpreter and cued language transliterator. He holds a master's degree in ASL-English Interpretation from Gallaudet University. His master's thesis examines the goal, role, results, and efficacy of signed language interpreting in hearing mainstream educational settings. Mr. Fleetwood has served as Director of Certification for the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID), the national certifying body for signed language interpreters in the United States. He is also a co-founder of the TECUnit and an original member of its certification development team. Mr. Fleetwood co-edits Gallaudet University’s Studies in Interpretation Series.
Together and separately, they have authored a variety of linguistics, interpretation, and transliteration themed publications including:
Metzger M., Fleetwood E. (2004). Educational interpreting: Developing standards of practice. Educational interpreting: How it can succeed.; Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press. 171–177.
Fleetwood E. Metzger M. 2000. Educational policy and signed language interpretation. Bilingualism & identity in deaf communities. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press. 161–183.
Fleetwood, E. and Metzger, M. (1990, rev 2017) Cued Language Transliteration Theory and Application. Silver Spring: Calliope Press.
Metzger, M. (2009). Salient Studies of Signed Language Interpreting in the Context of Community Interpreting Scholarship. Linguistica Antverpiensia,. 5,.
Metzger, M. & Quadros, R. (2012). Cognitive control in intermodal bilingual interpreters. Signed Language Interpreting in Brazil. 43-56.
Fleetwood, E. & Metzger, M. (1998). Cued Language Structure: An Analysis of Cued American English Based on Linguistic Principles. Silver Spring, MD: Calliope Press
Metzger, M. & Fleetwood, E. (2007). Translation, Sociolinguistic, and Consumer Issues in Interpreting. Bibliovault OAI Repository, the University of Chicago Press.
Metzger, M. & Fleetwood, E. & Collins, S.. (2004). Discourse Genre and Linguistic Mode: Interpreter Influences in Visual and Tactile Interpreted Interaction. Sign Language Studies. 4. 118-137. 10.1353/sls.2004.0004.
Metzger, M. (1999). Sign Language Interpreting: Deconstructing the Myth of Neutrality. Bibliovault OAI Repository, the University of Chicago Press.
Lasasso, C. & Metzger, M. (1998). An Alternate Route for Preparing Deaf Children for BiBi Programs: The Home Language as LI and Cued Speech for Conveying Traditionally-Spoken Languages. Journal of deaf studies and deaf education. 3. 265-89. 10.1093/oxfordjournals.deafed.a014356.
Metzger, M. (2019). Bilingualism and Identity in Deaf Communities. Bibliovault OAI Repository, the University of Chicago Press.
Metzger, M. (1995). Constructed dialogue and constructed action in American Sign Language.
Metzger, M. , and Fleetwood, E. (2010). Cued language: What deaf native cuers perceive of Cued Speech. In C. LaSasso , K. Crain , & J. Leybaert (Eds.), Cued Speech and cued language for deaf and hard of hearing children (pp. 53-66). San Diego, CA: Plural.