Communicating with a deaf teammate.

[Five Oh]

We have a deaf teammate on our scenario team. We have a white board for off field but it isn't always super handy and obviously isn't going to cut it on field. I'm considering ordering a few of the sleeves quarter backs use similar to this.

Before I do does anyone have any other ideas or suggestions?

[CrowsFeast]

This seems like a stupid question but have you asked the deaf teammate for his suggestions?

[punkncat]

I briefly played with a deaf individual in 'airball' tournaments. We would hold up a # of fingers and then gesture left/middle/right to indicate where players were. As it turns out, I can barely hear anymore, so I play with a deaf guy far more often....

[Shaftski]

In HS i played football with a guy who was deaf. He played free safety and i played open corner. I wore 2 different colored gloves, both pretty bright. Used a set of hand signals and the bright colors made things easier to see and tell right/left. Refs were OK with any uniform infractions that may have been in the rule book since a player had a legit disability.

Hands are full playing paintball but you could probably adapt a similar idea. It can only work if he has a visual on someone just about all the time though.

[XEMON]

My first thought is dive slate (no affiliation with the store, just the first one that popped up):
https://www.diversdirect.com/c/scuba...late?limit=all

When doing tech dives, I usually prep ahead some communication symbol I know I will be using (and share beforehand), then I just point to it, saves a lot of time.

But whatever you do, follow the affected player, if he is not on board, it's not gonna work ...

[FredMnkyDad10]

I like the two color gloves idea. You can develop some signals using your body to communicate position of the other team.

Tap to the head they are at the 10, shoulder 20, stomach at the 50, hip they are next to you. Can do that for left or right side, depending what side he is playing. Tap the middle of your body if the other team is coming up the middle.

[Grendel]

Take a class in ASL (American Sign Language) and hang out with your deaf teammate and don't use writing messages as a crutch. You will be amazed how quickly you will start communicating with each other. I have played with and reffed several deaf players in the past and they were delighted when they found out I knew some conversational sign language. Now I am having fun teaching my granddaughter sign language.

[autococker04]

Well I never in my life thought this would be relevant, but straight out of The Complete Guide to Paintball from 2004. Hand signals brought to you by a guy in a $500 shirt.

[Five Oh]

Thanks for the help everyone! We use hand signals with him all the time. The issue is as much for us just chatting as it is him running into people on the field that he doesn't know. We found water proof phone bags at Walmart today kinda similar to these We are gonna pair them up with dry erase markers and are stuffing them with card stock so they have a white background. They will also double up as nice little map pouches on the opposing side for games at fields we are unfamiliar with.

[Paintzapper]

Scenario games are gonna be tough but here are some ideas for ya.

• Laminated sheet of white paper and dry erase markers on an elastic band wrapped around the wrist. Cheap and easy to replace.
• Give him multiple markers as he will drop some.
• Pictures on the laminated paper of obvious actions/locations/words that one can quickly point to for instant communication.
• Customize a mask grill/jersey that can help other players quickly identify how to communicate with him while on the field. While some may see this as singling him out, others like myself who has played with dozens of people with disabilities, will appreciate the heads up and allows us to quickly adjust in the middle of a firefight.
• spare notepad and pen to hand to others so they can write things down while your friend is helping defend the same bunker/zone

[MrBarraclough]

Scenario games are gonna be tough but here are some ideas for ya.

• Customize a mask grill/jersey that can help other players quickly identify how to communicate with him while on the field. While some may see this as singling him out, others like myself who has played with dozens of people with disabilities, will appreciate the heads up and allows us to quickly adjust in the middle of a firefight.

I think this is particularly important. All players and referees need to be aware of the presence of a hearing impaired player and be able to instantly recognize him on the field. Someone who gets the drop on him and shouts "Surrender!" needs to know that they shouldn't light him up when he fails to respond. Likewise, referees need to be aware of the need to make eye contact and use hand signals when communicating with him.

In fact, when you have one or more players who cannot respond to verbal cues, everyone needs to adopt some non-verbal communication methods. There needs to be a visual signal for calling for a paintcheck and for signifying that one is waiting for a paintcheck, so that any deaf player does not continue to engage or mistakenly think that someone has already called themselves out.

I remember playing with a group of deaf renters once long ago. We had to devise a hand gesture for demanding a surrender and had to make sure that everyone used it so that they could understand what was going on even if they weren't directly involved in the exchange. They insisted on playing at least one game of deaf versus the hearing, but we redivided the teams after that one game because we realized that there were too many auditory cues involved in controlling the game and they had no hearing teammates to follow.