Building User-Centered ASL Communication Technologies for Parent-Child Interactions

Since most deaf or hard-of-hearing (DHH) children are born into hearing families, they are at risk of lifelong language deficits from a lack of natural language exposure in early childhood. The Tabletop Interactive Play System (TIPS) is a realtime American Sign Language (ASL) communication aid, for face-to-face joint play between hearing parents and their DHH children. We investigate user preferences for different ASL recommendation methods, providing insights into optimizing ASL communication technologies for hearing parent-DHH child interactions. We introduce Tap-to-Sign, an AR projection-based ASL sign retrieval system that grants parents complete autonomy in selecting the word to sign to their DHH child. Additionally, we propose three distinct strategies to automatically recommend a word for the parent to sign. To gain insights into our diverse methods, preliminary feedback was gathered from key stakeholders.