Phyxius,

I tried to look at your past posts. I don't see any mention of a neuro-psychological assessment. Have you had one done?

What were your visual scores? Weschler Auditory and Visual Immediate and Auditory and Visual Delayed (Short term) would be the categories.

Also, WAIS digit span would be helpful to know.

How about processing speed?

Your struggle studying suggests to me that you possibly have some processing speed limitations along with visual memory limitations. If this is true, I would think you need to work on these areas and see if you can improve them.

ASL interpreting is an intense occupation. Unless you can find work in a non-legal environment, you background and the limitations from it may prevent you from maintaining adequate work. A few problems in the legal interpreting field will be tough to overcome, especially if they are tied to your TBI history.

The need to be able to translate (major need for fast mental processing ) while listening to the words and then manually present the signs will mean three tasks at the same time, plus with a delay from hearing to signing. This last will require a strong and flexible immediate memory function.

I would suggest that you seriously listen to an occupational neuro-psychologist. They have a good understanding of how you weaknesses will manifest in a fast paced interpreting environment.

Maybe you can do some interpreting tests to see what you aptitude for different speeds and verbal accents , etc. is? I know that I have a difficult with accents. If the person does not speak real slow, I can either try to understand the meaning of their words (spoken with an accent, this is a form of mental translation) or try to understand the sentence.

The need to get your skill set to an almost subconscious level may be a challenge. By subconscious level, I mean that when you hear a word or phrase, you do not consciously interpret it but instead, it flows to the mental image that become the ASL sign. The same would hold true for the other direction... sign to verbal.

If you have ever learned a foreign language, you likely understand how you need to learn to think in the other language to become fluent. I would think that there is a similar need with ASL.

So, I hope you have a occupational psychologist that you can trust.

You have some hard decisions to think through.

btw, I have know many who have tried to work and serve the deaf community. It is difficult for a hearing person to be accepted by the deaf community. I would suspect they would not be very tolerant of a hearing person who has any struggles with ASL.

My best to you.