ASL STEM

ASL-STEM is a research project at the University of Washington that seeks to remove a fundamental obstacle currently in the way of deaf scientists and students. Due to its relative youth and widely dispersed user base, American Sign Language (ASL) has developed limited standard vocabulary for the many terms that have arisen in advanced Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. This makes it hard for deaf students to learn in their native language, and it makes communication between both deaf and hearing scientists and engineers far more difficult.

Language use and evolution cannot be dictated by the few, no matter their expertise. Instead, languages change because their users choose to change them. In this process, different ASL signs can develop for the same concept at different locations. ASL-STEM is an attempt to connect ASL users together so they can share vocabulary and perhaps naturally agree on a single or a few signs for the same concept. The hope is that this will help make it much easier for those in the Deaf community to pursue careers in STEM fields.

We currently have over 8721 terms and over 3265 signs, with more being added all the time.

Funding

ASL-STEM Forum is supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation, IIS-0915268, and by a gift from Google.

Contact Us

General: aslstemforum@cs.washington.edu

Bug Reports: ms192837@cs.washington.edu

Dictionaries