2026 National Conference Workshops
Presenters: Dr. Rosemary Wanis and Jerrin George
Deaf interpreters have been working in K12 settings throughout the US increasingly and yet still not recognized by IDEA nor by the EIPA assessment process. Howevever, the benefits an impact of the work of Deaf interpreters in the educational setting is undeniable. This workshop is designed to further explore the roles, the collaborative team experience, and the process of Deaf interpreters working with hearing interpreters and with a wide range of student needs in the classroom. A review of the various roles an interpreter might have in the classroom while discussing decision-making processes that align with student needs such as working with immigrants/refugees, emergent signers, DeafDisabled students, and more. This workshop is co-presented by two Deaf Interpreters. Rosemary as a researcher and Jerrin as a practitioner.
Presenter: Dr. Suzette Garay
This panelist presentation will summarize the data collected from NAIE members participating in a 16-week online course focused on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB). It aims to explore NAIE members’ experiences and feedback on the course content, access to resources, and overall impact on their personal and professional development. The insights derived from this evaluation will be shared with opportunities for other members to explore future iterations of the course and for enhancing DEIB initiatives within NAIE’s overall organization’s goals, mission, and values for all members. Participants will also have opportunities to create an action plan for incorporating the DEIB principles into their own educational interpreter roles and functions.
Presenter: Dr. Kimberly Ofori-Sanzo
Providing access is not the same as supporting language development. This session explores how speech-language pathologists and interpreters can collaborate effectively to ensure Deaf and hard of hearing students receive both equitable access and intentional language support. Using concrete classroom and therapy examples, participants will examine actionable strategies for pre-session planning, in-the-moment scaffolding, and post-session debriefing to strengthen Deaf and hard of hearing students’ language and learning. Emphasis is placed on working with students with language deprivation.
Presenters: LJ Williams, M.A., and Dr. Suzette Garay
This three hour hands-on activities will engage participants on using culturally responsive sign-choices for school diversity celebration months. It is designed for for both educational interpreters and other school personnel seeking to enhance their skills in providing inclusive and equitable interpreting and/or interactions with DHHDB+ diverse students during school events that celebrate diversity. Participants will gain insights into the cultural significance of various diversity celebrations, developing deeper understanding of the cultural contexts that influence communication. This knowledge will enable interpreters and school personnel to navigate cultural nuances effectively, ensuring their interpreting practices and/or interactions with DHHDB+ diverse students are both respectful and culturally relevant.
Presenter: Yael Herbstman, M.A.
Educational interpreters know that teacher talk can get… well, messy. Long sentences, side comments, academic vocabulary, unexpected tangents, and suddenly the meaning is buried under the words. This workshop helps interpreters “uncover the meaning underneath” and focus on conceptual accuracy: understanding the idea first, then choosing language that makes sense visually. We’ll explore fun examples (from storybook creatures to exploring the imagination), practice quick techniques for reorganizing messy English, and apply those skills to real K-12 classroom content. Come ready to play, practice, and leave with a toolkit that makes interpreting clearer, smoother, and must more student friendly.
Presenter: Amanda Kennon, M.A, NIC and Celena Ponce
Drawing from research, professional practice, and lived experience, Amanda and Celena guide participants through an interactive exploration of language variation within the Deaf community. This workshop moves beyond surface-level mechanics to examine how the intersections of ethics, power, identity, and systemic structures directly inform the interpreting process in educational settings.
Through a trauma-informed lens, participants will examine language deprivation—not merely as a linguistic delay, but as a significant trauma with lasting implications. By building a co-constructed schema, attendees will formulate and assess targeted communication access strategies for a diverse range of PK-12 students, including emerging ASL & English users; immigrants; neurodivergent learners; and students with disabilities.
This session concludes with actionable growth; participants will design a personal development plan centered on cultural humility and responsiveness, equipping them to move beyond individual practice and collectively affect systemic change. Throughout the workshop, participants will engage in dynamic discussions and role-plays. Attendees are highly encouraged to bring their own case studies to share ethical and effective practices within a collaborative environment.
Presenters: Angela Katcher-Battani, Megan Seipke-Dame, MA, NIC, Ed:K12, BEI Adv, and Erin Seipke-Brown, MA, NIC, Ed:K12, BEI Adv
Educational interpreters supporting students who are DeafBlind know that the work requires intentional collaboration and a clear understanding of professional roles. This workshop explores the distinct, yet complementary, roles of DeafBlind interveners and educational interpreters within K-12 settings and service provision. Participants in this session will examine the unique responsibilities of both interveners and interpreters, including how interveners support access to environmental information, communication, and concept development. They will also discuss how interpreters facilitate linguistic access while maintaining professional boundaries.
Through guided discussion and practical examples from an actual intervener-interpreter team, the session will highlight ways interpreters can effectively support interveners during service provision, including strategies for communication, coordination, and shared problem-solving. Emphasis will be placed on teamwork as the most critical component in successfully promoting consistent access, independence, and meaningful engagement for students who are DeafBlind.
Presenter: Renee Sunday, M.D.
Educational interpreters play a critical role in supporting access, language development, and learning for deaf and hard of hearing students in mainstream PK–12 classrooms. The work requires sustained concentration, emotional presence, rapid decision-making, and consistent professionalism, often within fast-paced and unpredictable school environments. Over time, these demands can contribute to chronic stress, fatigue, and burnout.
This professional development workshop focuses on stress management and burnout prevention as professional sustainability issues within educational interpreting. The session explores how workload expectations, classroom dynamics, emotional labor, and school system pressures affect focus, accuracy, and long-term effectiveness. Attention is given to recognizing early signs of overload before performance and wellbeing are compromised.
Participants will engage with realistic classroom-based scenarios and guided reflection to examine how stress shows up during the school day and across the academic year. Practical strategies are shared to support pacing, boundary awareness, recovery, and communication within educational settings, all while maintaining ethical standards and student-centered service.
The workshop is interactive and designed to honor the lived experiences of educational interpreters. Participants leave with tools and insights that support clarity, endurance, and continued effectiveness in their roles, aligning with NAIE’s mission to strengthen interpreter practice and sustainability in PK–12 environments.
Presenter: Klijah Mitchell, NIC
This interactive 3-hour workshop is designed for educational interpreters working within K-12 settings. The session will focus on enhancing communication flow, fostering assertive communication, and advocating for the vital role of interpreters in educational settings. Participants will engage in discussions around building trust and rapport with Individualized Education Program (IEP) teams, goal-setting strategies, ethical decision-making, and avenues for professional growth. By integrating skill development with mentoring, this workshop aims to improve participants’ professional identities and empower them to navigate the complexities of their roles effectively.
Presenter: Lisa Godfrey, Ed.D.
Educational interpreters work as part of an instructional team and are expected to accurately interpret specialized educational language while collaborating effectively within school systems. Teachers and related educational personnel, including administrators, special education staff, instructional coaches, service providers, and support professionals, routinely reference technical concepts such as tiered academic vocabulary, MTSS/RTI interventions, Depth of Knowledge, Gradual Release of Responsibility, assessment frameworks, and instructional models. This systems-based language extends beyond what is typically required of generalist interpreters and appears across instructional, planning, and decision-making contexts.
This workshop supports interpreters in building competence with this expanded technical vocabulary and systems knowledge to improve interpreting accuracy, conceptual equivalence, and instructional access for Deaf and hard-of-hearing students. Participants will examine how understanding instructional frameworks and school-based systems enables interpreters to better anticipate educator intent, align with instructional and programmatic goals, and contribute more effectively as members of educational teams. Strengthening this knowledge supports clearer communication, more consistent interpreting outcomes, and stronger collaboration with educators and support staff across classroom and collaborative settings.
Presenters: Shane Blau, Ph.D., Patrice Creamer, and Dr. Elaine Gale
Educational interpreters play an important role in supporting deaf students’ access to language and learning in public school settings. In addition to conveying academic content, interpreters working with young children often support students’ participation, engagement, and access to social interactions. This work benefits from a strong understanding of how to support children’s attention through visual language strategies that enhance engagement and academic involvement.
When interpreters are part of a young child’s educational journey, they must consider not only what is interpreted, but also how language is delivered. Most hearing adults have an intuitive sense of how to modify language for young children but may not understand how to translate those instincts from an auditory modality to a visual one.
This 3-hour professional development workshop adapts a curriculum originally developed for families of deaf children and reframes it for educational interpreters in mainstream classroom settings. Drawing on research from early language acquisition and findings from the Family ASL Project, the session highlights how intentional use of visual strategies, shared attention, and specific language modifications can strengthen access to instruction and interaction for young deaf learners.
Participants will begin with a concise review of why early language access is critical for brain development. Research shows that both deaf and hearing children are highly sensitive to the linguistic patterns that comprise signed languages. We will share this research and discuss how it underscores the importance of early visual language access.
The workshop then introduces a set of evidence-based visual strategies commonly used by Deaf adults when interacting with young children. These include strategies for gaining visual attention, engaging shared attention, following the child’s lead, modifying signing style, and maintaining clear, accessible visual access. Researchers identified a set of visual strategies based on analysis of Deaf adults’ child-directed interactions (DLIA). The Family ASL project took these ideas and created short mini-lessons, each designed to be flexible, adaptable, short lessons that present a single achievable skill, provide examples, and support practice. Each lesson takes 10-15 minutes and can be completed independently via self-guided resources or with the support of an ASL specialist or mentor.
The mini-lessons were designed to help hearing parents take the first steps toward interacting with their deaf child, who is likely to be a visually-oriented individual. We discuss the differences between auditory and visual attention, and provide clear opportunities to see and practice visual strategies. The strategies that parents use in daily life can also be productively applied to educational contexts, and all practitioners who interact with deaf children at this stage in development can benefit from knowing how Deaf individuals would engage a child in the same context.
The core of this workshop focuses on applying the visual strategies lessons within everyday educational interpreting contexts. Through video analysis, guided discussion, and hands-on practice, participants will explore how visual strategies can be integrated into their interpreting work while carefully considering professional boundaries. We will use the “mini-lessons” as a framework, walking through each step of the lessons (connect, teach, engage, link, remind) as a way to examine the lessons themselves and evaluate how best to apply these strategies to your own professional experience.
Throughout the workshop, interpreters are invited to reflect on their professional practice and think about how visual strategies can enhance clarity, engagement, and student access, particularly for young deaf children who are still developing language and classroom routines. The session emphasizes that visual strategies complement interpreters’ existing skills and support high-quality, equitable access in inclusive classrooms.
Participants will leave with a new understanding of scientific foundations for early visual language access, practical tools, and immediately applicable strategies to strengthen their work with deaf children in educational settings.
Presenter: Tia Ivanko, M.S., NIC, ADAC
Access to opportunities in primary and secondary education settings for deaf youth are essential as building blocks to postsecondary pathways. 2025 data analysis from the National Deaf Center data shows that an estimated 11% of deaf people (age 16-24) are enrolled in postsecondary education and training opportunities, compared to 31.4% of hearing adults, and completion rates for deaf people remain lower despite commitments to accessibility practices (Bloom et al, 2026). While access to postsecondary opportunities has increased, this data suggests a need to explore the experiences of deaf youth prior to postsecondary settings, including accessibility practices.
In K–12 general education settings, educational interpreters play a crucial role in shaping how deaf students experience learning, peer interaction, and a sense of belonging within their school community. While interpreters’ responsibilities are centered on providing access in the moment, it is also important to consider their positionality and the opportunity their role offers in supporting students’ development of accessibility awareness. NDC data on deaf youth shows that gaps in access begin well before college, reinforcing the importance of interpreter practices that support engagement, participation, and instructional access throughout K-12 and transition planning. Foundational access skills necessary to navigate postsecondary settings—such as understanding their access preferences and participating in access-related decision-making—require practice over time in low-risk environments, like schools. Leveraging a ‘lifetime access’ perspective helps educational interpreters connect day-to-day practice with students’ future pathways.
As deaf students transition to postsecondary settings – education, training, or employment, they encounter fundamentally different access systems, expectations, and responsibilities. Many interpreting practices that function effectively within K–12 environments do not fully align with postsecondary access models, where student autonomy, self-advocacy, and shared responsibility are central. As a result, deaf students may graduate academically prepared but underprepared to navigate accessibility expectations in college, training programs, and other postsecondary pathways.
This session introduces a student-centered transition lens that helps interpreters reflect on past practices, examine present-day decision-making, and intentionally prepare for future student outcomes. National data underscores that deaf students are not a monolith – in fact, nearly half have additional disabilities, many are first generation, and a significant number are balancing non-traditional circumstances. As a result, interpreters need to be equipped with flexible student-responsive interpreting practices that are essential to postsecondary pathways (NDC, 2023. Drawing on national data, lived experiences, and transition outcomes, participants will explore how their daily interpreting decisions influence long-term access, independence, and postsecondary readiness. Additionally, this workshop will foster understanding of how student-centered interpreting practices are essential to meaningful access.
Educational interpreters do more than provide access in the moment; they shape how students understand access, advocate for their needs, and see themselves as capable participants in educational and social systems beyond high school. Through guided reflection, practice analysis, and future intention setting, participants will examine how their current work can either reinforce dependence or cultivate autonomy, ensuring that interpreting services evolve in tandem with the changing access needs of deaf youth.