I just thought I'd pass this on. This is a story about a new official near my local area. It appeared in this week's Sunday paper. I thought someone might find it interesting.

http://www.masslive.com/sports/union...7979442968.xml

Great article. Thanks for sharing.

We have a couple of hearing impaired officials out here who have successful careers. I learned many valuable non-verbal communication tools by working with them, that I've incorporated into all of my games.

I'll admit, I'm not familiar with any people who are hearing impaired, so I don't know much about thier speech. The only speech I've heard from a deaf person has been on TV. I'm wondering if explaining rule interpretations to a coach or any other communication that may need to take place during a game could become complicated for both parties. Hand signals can only tell so much, can't they?

...I learned all of my officating from watching TV, too ;)

Speech is mostly affected with those who have been hearing impaired since birth. For my colleagues, their hearing loss was gradual into their adult years, so their speech is "normal".

With the advent of technology, and tiny stealth hearing aids, chances are that you proably encounter more "deaf" people than you are even aware.

I love working with them, especially when a coach discovers that all of their yelling has truly fallen on deaf ears.