Embedded Access to Signing of Science Terms and Definitions

Deaf and hard-of-hearing students may lag behind their hearing peers in English literacy and in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Evaluations in classroom and informal environments have demonstrated the efficacy of the dictionaries in increasing student engagement and mastery of math and science content and vocabulary. This project develops a cloud-based service and corresponding browser plug-in, which allows 7th-12th grade Deaf and hard-of-hearing students to access signed translations of science terms and definitions. The plug-in scans an open web page and highlights terms included in the Signing Life Science Dictionary. The student can then click on a highlighted term to see an animated American Sign Language (ASL) or Signed English (SE) translation of the term and its definition. For Phase I, the web browser plug-in and sign language server include approximately 750 life science terms used in grades 7-12. Future phases will include expanding the dictionary to more than 6,000 terms.