Spanish Relay

By: Connie Short

About the Author: Connie Short is an outreach manager for Arizona Relay Service which is administered by the Arizona Commission for the Deaf and the Hard of Hearing. As an outreach manager, Short works to raise awareness and promote the different types of relay services available for the deaf, hard of hearing, deaf-blind or speech-disabled communities throughout the state. Short is a graduate of Arizona State University.

Talking on the telephone is a regular everyday activity for most people. But what do you do if you have hearing loss and Spanish is your primary language?

Arizona Relay Service provides bilingual Communication Assistants who are specially trained to relay conversations in Spanish. Spanish Relay Service is for people who are deaf or hard of hearing who wish to communicate in Spanish (through text or voice) with an individual who uses a standard telephone. To use the Spanish Relay Service, dial 711 and indicate that you would like a Spanish-speaking Communication Assistant, or dial 1-800-842-2088. Arizona Relay Service provides Spanish-to-Spanish relay and English-to-Spanish translation relay.

TTY is the most common way that people who are deaf or hard of hearing communicate, and now it is even easier to communicate if Spanish is your preferred language.  The approach and actions of using TTY is the same, the Communication Assistant will either translate the conversation to the appropriate person or type the words in Spanish for the convenience of the TTY user.

With Arizona Relay Service, Spanish-speaking Arizonans who are deaf, hard of hearing or have difficulty speaking can continue to experience independence in communicating via the phone.