Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Connections

How locally developed AI tools are helping parents of Deaf children learn ASL

Five smiling people wearing headphones sit at a table in a radio talk studio: a man at left in foreground has short brown hair and a brown beard and is wearing a grey fleece vest, a floral button-down shirt, grey jeans and brown shoes; a woman at right in foreground has short dark hair and is wearing a black dress, grey vest and black sneakers; a woman at left in background has short dark hair and is wearing glasses and a white sweater; a man at right in background has short dark hair and is wearing a black shirt; a woman at center has long dark hair and is wearing glasses, a yellow sweater, black jeans and black shoes.
Julie Williams
/
WXXI News
(foreground) Wyatte Hall and Zhen Bai, (background) Byron Behm, (center) Karen Fisher-Malley with guest host Sarah Murphy Abbamonte on "Connections with Evan Dawson" on Friday, January 24, 2025
A smiling woman wearing with chin length dark hair wearing a short sleeved white t-shirt sits in front of a microphone at a table in a radio talk studio.
Julie Williams
/
WXXI News
Sarah Abbamonte guest hosting "Connections with Evan Dawson" on Friday, September 13, 2024

The first five years of a child’s life are crucial for language development — shaping cognitive abilities, enhancing communication skills, and supporting social interactions.

Within the Deaf community, 90 percent of Deaf children are born to hearing parents. Their child may be the first Deaf person a parent ever meets. Supporting hearing parents to gain fluency in American Sign Language (ASL) can have a significant benefit on language development for deaf and hard of hearing children.

University of Rochester researchers Zhen Bai and Wyatte Hall are developing AI-powered, augmented reality tools to help parents of Deaf children learn ASL. They’ve been working with the Deaf community to develop and test the software, including early collaborations with the Rochester School of the Deaf.

Guest host Sarah Abbamonte explores the new technology and its implications with the team.

In studio:

  • Zhen Bai, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Rochester
  • Wyatte Hall, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences, the Center for Community Health and Prevention, Neurology, Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Pediatrics, Neonatology at the University of Rochester Medical Center
  • Karen Fisher-Malley, director of early childhood programs and Kindergarten at the Rochester School for the Deaf
  • Byron Behm, ASL interpreter

*Notes:

  • To read a transcript of this episode, click here.
    To request a transcript of any episode of Connections, please use this form.
  • To learn more about this technology or to participate in the research, click here:

https://universityrochester.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_2c41WXtqDQhl6PI

Sarah Murphy Abbamonte, MPA, is the project manager for Move to Include(TM), an award-winning national initiative to promote disability inclusion, representation, and accessibility in public media. A "boomerang Rochesterarian," she joined WXXI in 2023 with two decades of nonprofit experience, primarily in the arts and culture sector.
Julie Williams is an associate producer for "Connections with Evan Dawson" and is also the office administrator for radio, news and technology and operations. She started at WXXI in 2019 and has been working on Connections since 2022.