“I’ve never been made to feel that I don’t fit in”

Cook Ireland’s Analytical Lab embraces sign language

Kate O’Neill was born deaf. When she was young, a doctor of audiology told her parents that Kate might never speak. When she was 5 years old, Kate said her first words. Throughout her childhood, she attended speech therapy, but would often get frustrated trying to talk. Kate attended mainstream primary and secondary schools, and struggled with how exhausting and difficult lipreading could be. To make her schooling easier, her teacher wore a microphone that would send a feed directly into Kate’s hearing aid.

“My head would rattle from the vibrations and I’d end up with a headache,” Kate said.

Finally, when she was 11 years old, Kate learned about sign language.

“At first, I didn’t realize how important sign language could be, and I was slow to learn because I wanted to be able to speak,” said Kate. “It wasn’t until I went to college that I developed the confidence to show the real me, and using sign language was part of that.”

In the office

Before Kate entered the workforce, she sometimes worried about being able to effectively communicate with her co-workers. In 2017, she started her job as an Analytical Lab analyst at Cook Ireland. During her time at the company, Kate has relied on lipreading and email to interact with her team on a daily basis. Any employee training sessions she attends have to be translated by an Irish Sign Language (ISL) interpreter.

Sometimes the little things that get taken for granted can be difficult for Kate. For instance, if there is an issue with her computer, she can’t simply pick up the phone and call IT. Because of this, a great deal of her daily communication is accomplished via email.

Members of the Analytical Lab team reached out to Mary Donnellan, the Analytical Lab manager. They wanted to find out how they could better communicate with Kate and make their work environment more welcoming and inclusive for her.

At the beginning of the year, 13 members of the team, including Mary, signed up to take part in a beginner’s ISL course. The eight-week program, supported by the Human Resources team at Cook Ireland, meets once a week and focuses on basic sign language principles, daily greetings, and simple work-related signs. The course is taught on site at Cook Ireland by an instructor from the Deaf Community Centre of Limerick. Healthy competition has been growing amongst the team since they started the course, with many setting their sights on moving onto the advanced curriculum already.

An improved way of working

While lipreading is one viable way for Kate to communicate, there are some long-term downsides to this method. It can be exhausting, and there are often important and helpful elements missing from this form of communication. Lipreading can make it difficult to pick up on a speaker’s emotions, inflections, tone, and so on. Sign language can help fill in these missing details, and help both parties feel assured that they are understanding the conversation and situation correctly. It does so through the use of hand signs, as well as hand movements and positions, facial expressions, gestures, and body language to communicate concepts and ideas.¹

Kate, her friends, and her family were delighted to find out that her team at Cook had taken up the challenge to learn to sign and that they are taking strides to make communication easier for her in the workplace. Even something as simple as being able to sign the alphabet has made it easier to understand and engage with a number of the acronyms that we love and use so frequently at Cook.

“Even though communication isn’t always easy for me, I’ve never been made to feel that I don’t fit in or that I can’t do my job like anyone else. If I have any problems, they help me find solutions,” she said. “Cook has been a great support.”

At the beginning of February, an ISL interpreter translated Cook Medical’s three-year strategic objectives for the manufacturing unit in Ireland at one of the employee town hall meetings in Limerick. The meetings focused on continuous improvement, which is apt given that this is the first time that Cook Ireland employees have explored the use of sign language as an improved way of working.

The initiative of the Analytical Lab team highlights several of Cook’s shared values and showcases the very best of our Cook culture:

• Treating everyone with respect and being open to different perspectives
• Solving problems together and innovating to find solutions
• Continually improving and learning from each other to improve how we work

You can watch the Analytical Lab team showcase their ISL skills in this short video below.

Encouraging others

In light of the communication efforts and successes of Kate’s team, she hopes that it will encourage other employees to not be afraid of trying to communicate with and to learn more about the deaf community.

“I don’t mind people watching me sign or asking me questions,” she said. “I think it’s great when people show me that they can sign, and I don’t mind if they get it wrong. Don’t be afraid. It’s good to learn and try something new. I’m delighted that I was encouraged to learn sign language, and I believe it’s helped me to get to where I am today.”

From Kate’s perspective, the more awareness she can raise for sign language the better. In some companies, deaf people aren’t included in the same way as other employees, or they’re not as confident in using their sign language. While they may be qualified for their positions, they can find it difficult to get jobs because of communication barriers. Kate hopes to encourage people to learn sign language to communicate better with other members of the deaf community.

“I count myself as very lucky,” added Kate. “My team has shown me so much kindness in wanting to learn Irish Sign Language and in wanting to include me.”

Sign language facts

• “According to the World Federation of the Deaf, there are 70 million people in the world who use sign language to communicate.”¹
• Sign language is a visual language that uses gestures and handshapes to represent concepts or ideas. “Sign language is actually a broad term that describes many visual languages that have different grammar and syntax rules but use the same basic signs.”²
• “There are somewhere between 138 and 300 different types of sign language used throughout the world today.”³
• Sign languages often vary from country to country. Even countries that share a sign language often have different dialects.¹
• “Irish Sign Language is different from all other sign languages such as British Sign Language, American Sign Language etc.”⁴
• In December of 2017, the Irish government approved the Recognition of Irish Sign Language Bill for the Irish Deaf Community, recognizing Irish Sign Language as an official third language in the Ireland.
• “Irish Sign Language is the first and/or preferred language of 5000 Deaf people in Ireland and approximately 40,000 people in general will communicate in ISL (family, friends, co-workers, etc).”⁴
• To learn more about Irish Sign Language or the Irish deaf community visit www.irishdeafsociety.ie.

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1. 10 facts on sign languages. Languages Unlimited, LLC Web site. https://www.languagesunlimited.com/10-facts-sign-languages. Accessed April 10, 2019.
2. American Sign Language. StartASL.com Web site. https://www.startasl.com/american-sign-language. Accessed April 10, 2019.
3. Brooks R. A guide to the different types of sign language around the world. K International Web site. https://www.k-international.com/blog/different-types-of-sign-language-around-the-world. Published May 10, 2018. Accessed April 10, 2019.
4. Irish sign language. Irish Deaf Society Web site. https://www.irishdeafsociety.ie/irish-sign-language. Accessed April 10, 2019.