National DI Survey respondents were asked about the consumers of Deaf Interpreting services.

General Demographic Information

  • The majority of consumers are American-born (79%) versus foreign-born (21%).
  • 91% of consumers are over age 16.
  • The general demographic profile of consumers are adults aged 22-65 (58%) with education levels of K-12 (64%).
  • 73% of consumers are Caucasian/White.

How much of DI Work is with Consumers who are Deaf-Blind?

  • 27% of respondents indicated that the majority of their consumers are “Deaf-Blind,” while the remaining 73% stated that the majority of their consumers are “Deaf-sighted.”
  • 62% of respondents reported they work in close vision signing and 56% reported they work in tactile signing, which are both common approaches to Deaf-Blind interpreting.

Given that such high percentages of DI respondents use communication forms common to Deaf-Blind interpreting, but only a smaller proportion indicated that they work with these consumers, it is likely that those who indicated that the majority of their consumers are Deaf-sighted still interpret for some consumers who are Deaf-Blind.

Other Characteristics of Consumers

Another item on the survey asked respondents, “How often are you called to interpret?” for certain consumers. The table below summarizes the frequency for types of consumers that DIs interpret for.

Never

Rarely

Occasionally

Regularly

Frequently
Consumer uses a foreign sign language.

35%

31%

22%

7%

6%
Consumer has little or no language

14%

23%

36%

15%

12%
Consumer is a monolingual ASL user (i.e. has limited English)

6%

11%

31%

30%

22%
Consumer has mental retardation (MR)

35%

29%

25%

8%

4%
Consumer has mental illness

26%

22%

29%

16%

6%
Consumer has dementia or Alzheimer’s

71%

20%

6%

2%

1%
Consumer is Deafblind

16%

26%

23%

16%

18%

 

  •  The most frequent/regular occurrence is for DIs to interpret with consumers who are monolingual ASL users (52%) or Deafblind (34%).
  • The majority of DI respondents (71%) “never” interpret for consumers with dementia or Alzheimer’s. Only about 13% of DI respondents work with consumers who are over 65 years of age, which may explain the small frequency of consumers with dementia or Alzheimer’s.
  • The frequency of DI respondents working with consumers with mental illness is consistent with the mental health settings reported in Work Settings.