Training Activities for Hearing Audience

Resources for training on Deaf Access

Information Access (courtesy: Colorado Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing)

Have three index cards ready. One has "2 + 2 = ?" in large print. One has "2 + 2 = ?" in teeny tiny barely legible print. The other one has nothing on it at all.
Ask audience for 3 volunteers to play a game.
Each volunteer gets one card, face down. Tell them that when you say "GO!" they have to flip the card over and answer whatever is on the card. Whoever answers first wins the game.
Of course there is always just one person that quickly answers. The other two are puzzled / frustrated. This is good to initiate discussion on the experience that Deaf, hard of hearing and DeafBlind folks have in many situations involving law enforcement or other hearing people. How much access we have to information, etc. and how it feels to be denied that access in what is an urgent/sometimes feels like "competitive" situation with the person causing harm.

Lipreading 1 (courtesy of DVAS)
Presenter or volunteer says words or statements without using their voice. Participants guess what was just said.

Challenges of Interpreting - Telephone Game (courtesy of DeafHope)

Start with a three or four sentence written statement with some detail (sometimes DVSV specific like a statement during police investigation, sometimes something light but still detailed, depending on the audience).
Participant A reads that statement to Participant B in private.
Participant B goes to Participant C and repeats it from memory.
Participant C does the same to Participant D and so on five or six times.
Then as a group we compare what the final person heard with the original statement. Quite sobering to see how much is lost/changed in the process.

Writing in ASL (courtesy of DVAS)

Participants are shown examples of English words put in ASL order (gloss for example), and they have to guess the meaning of the sentence.
The sentences are DV/SV specific, and they illustrate the differences between English and ASL grammar/syntax.
Example: YOU ME CROSS. MISS ME KNOW. ME SORRY. (We must have walked past and missed each other, sorry.)