Can you describe the different types of interpreters and the characteristics of their typical assignments?

Healthcare Interpreters / Community Interpreters: A healthcare interpreter is an individual who has been trained in healthcare interpreting, adheres to a professional code of ethics and protocols for the profession, is knowledgeable about medical terminology, and can accurately and completely render communication from one language to another. Minor children are not considered appropriate to serve as interpreters because they lack the training, skills and competencies.
Generally speaking healthcare and community interpreters utilize the consecutive mode of interpreting. Typical assignments can take place in hospitals, outpatient clinics, private medical practices, schools, community centers, and government offices.

Mental Health Interpreters: Cultural beliefs and values play a very important role on the perceptions and perspectives of mental illnesses and mental health problems, which directly impacts the idioms of distress used by the patient to label the illness or symptoms. Mental Health Interpreters apart from upholding the same ethical standards of impartiality, confidentiality, transparency, professional boundaries (and more) of the healthcare interpreter, must also provide significant assistance as a cultural clarifier for the provider. Other core competencies of the Mental Health Interpreter include a significant understanding of the language and treatment protocols of our mental health systems. Typical assignments the Mental Health Interpreter performs in the in-patient or out-patient settings include: Domestic abuse, substance abuse, mood, anxiety, thought, personality and adjustment disorders. Another part of serving specific refugee populations as a mental health interpreter is helping patients deal with the real effects of residual trauma experienced in their home countries during violent social upheavals that have displaced so many thousands throughout the world.

California State Certified Court Interpreter: ( Excerpted from the Judicial Council of California 's web site, which can be found at : http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/programs/courtinterpreters/
“ A court interpreter is anyone who interprets in a civil or criminal court proceeding (e.g., arraignment, motion, pretrial conference, preliminary hearing, deposition, trial) for a witness or defendant who speaks or understands little or no English. Court interpreters must accurately interpret for individuals with a high level of education and an expansive vocabulary, as well as persons with very limited language skills without changing the language register of the speaker. Interpreters are also sometimes responsible for translating written documents, often of a legal nature, from English into the target language and from the target language into English.

Are there different kinds (modes) of interpreting?

Simultaneous: Converting a speakers (or signer's) message into another language while the speaker continues to speak.

Consecutive: A mode of interpreting most widely used in the healthcare and community interpreting setting, whereby an interpreter relays a message in a sequential manner after the speaker has paused or has completed a thought. The interpreter waits until the speaker has finished speaking before rendering it in the other language.

Sight Translation: An interpreter reads a document written in the source language and interprets it into a second language.

American Sign Language: ( excerpted from the National Association of the Deaf located at : http://www.nad.org )

…”Sign language is a visual language. This means that the brain processes linguistic information through the eyes instead of ears. It also means that facial expressions and body movements play an important part in conveying information. It is possible to sign without using facial or body expressions, but doing so may give a mixed message and may confuse your deaf listeners. It will also look odd or unnatural.
Sign language by itself is not a universal language -- each country has their own sign language, much like the thousands of languages spoken by hearing people all over the world. Like any spoken language, American Sign Language (ASL) is a living language with its own rules of grammar. Like all verbal languages, ASL grows and changes over time to accommodate the needs of its native users. If you were to travel to another state and had an opportunity to speak with a deaf person of that state, you may even notice that s/he will do some signs differently from you. These signs are known as "regional" signs, and you can think of them as the equivalent of "accent". It does not mean that deaf people in your state are signing their signs incorrectly, as opposed to those used by deaf people in another state. It is just a normal variation in ASL, and such regional signs add flavor to your understanding of ASL. It is important to remember that when you discover there is no sign for a word, it does not mean you can invent or make up a new sign.”