Conceptually accurate signed English transliteration: Effects of speaking rate and lag time on production accuracy

This paper is the fifth in a series concerned with factors affecting the level of access that educational interpreters provide to deaf and hard-of-hearing students. In previous papers, we have examined accuracy and intelligibility of educational interpreters who use Cued Speech (CS) and Signing Exact English (SEE). In this study, accuracy, or the proportion of the message correctly produced by the interpreter, was evaluated in 12 Conceptually Accurate Signed English (CASE) transliterators with varying degrees of experience at 3 different speaking rates (slow, normal, fast). Results were similar to previously reported data for CS and SEE transliterators: (a) speaking rate had a large negative effect on accuracy, primarily due to increased frequency of omissions, and (b) lag time had a very small negative effect on accuracy, accounting for just 3% of the variance. A small difference from previous studies was that increased experience level was not associated with increased accuracy; rather, all experience groups performed similarly. Finally, like their CS and SEE counterparts, the overall accuracy of the CASE transliterators (61% on average) was relatively low, which continues to raise concerns about the quality of transliteration services that (at least some) children receive in educational settings.