{"id":80699,"date":"2024-11-08T11:56:28","date_gmt":"2024-11-08T16:56:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/?post_type=bu-article&#038;p=80699"},"modified":"2026-04-24T14:37:38","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T18:37:38","slug":"new-center-promotes-universal-sign-language-access","status":"publish","type":"bu-article","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/magazine\/articles\/2024\/new-center-promotes-universal-sign-language-access\/","title":{"rendered":"New Center Promotes Universal Sign Language Access"},"content":{"rendered":"\t<div class=\"wp-block-editorial-leadin magazine-block-editorial-leadin is-style-side-by-side has-media has-box has-media-focus-center-middle has-tertiary-theme\">\n\t\t<div class=\"container-lockup\">\n\n\t\t\t<div class=\"wp-block-leadin-media\">\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<img width=\"2560\" height=\"2560\" src=\"\/wheelock\/files\/2022\/10\/Naomi-Caselli_33_-scaled.jpg\" class=\"\" alt=\"Photo of Naomi Caselli\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/files\/2022\/10\/Naomi-Caselli_33_-scaled.jpg 2560w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/files\/2022\/10\/Naomi-Caselli_33_-600x600.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/files\/2022\/10\/Naomi-Caselli_33_-1500x1500.jpg 1500w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/files\/2022\/10\/Naomi-Caselli_33_-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/files\/2022\/10\/Naomi-Caselli_33_-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/files\/2022\/10\/Naomi-Caselli_33_-1536x1536.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/files\/2022\/10\/Naomi-Caselli_33_-2048x2048.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/files\/2022\/10\/Naomi-Caselli_33_-826x826.jpg 826w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/files\/2022\/10\/Naomi-Caselli_33_-344x344.jpg 344w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/files\/2022\/10\/Naomi-Caselli_33_-529x529.jpg 529w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/files\/2022\/10\/Naomi-Caselli_33_-682x682.jpg 682w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/files\/2022\/10\/Naomi-Caselli_33_-1032x1032.jpg 1032w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/files\/2022\/10\/Naomi-Caselli_33_-1321x1321.jpg 1321w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/files\/2022\/10\/Naomi-Caselli_33_-688x688.jpg 688w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/files\/2022\/10\/Naomi-Caselli_33_-1058x1058.jpg 1058w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/files\/2022\/10\/Naomi-Caselli_33_-1364x1364.jpg 1364w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/files\/2022\/10\/Naomi-Caselli_33_-1652x1652.jpg 1652w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/files\/2022\/10\/Naomi-Caselli_33_-1000x1000.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/files\/2022\/10\/Naomi-Caselli_33_-500x500.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/files\/2022\/10\/Naomi-Caselli_33_-1200x1200.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/files\/2022\/10\/Naomi-Caselli_33_-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/files\/2022\/10\/Naomi-Caselli_33_-550x550.jpg 550w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/files\/2022\/10\/Naomi-Caselli_33_-710x710.jpg 710w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\" \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"container-words-outer\">\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"container-words-inner\">\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"wp-prepress-tag\">Deaf Studies<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h1 class=\"head\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<br>New Center Promotes Universal Sign Language Access\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar magazine-prepress-layout-metabar\">\n\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-date\">November 8, 2024<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-comments\">\n\t\t\t<a href=\"#comments\" class=\"wp-prepress-component-comment-counter label has-no-comments\"><span class=\"wp-prepress-component-comment-counter-zero\"><span>0<\/span><\/span><\/a>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-credits\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<ul data-credit-type=\"By\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/bu-author\/molly-callahan\/\">Molly Callahan<\/a><\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/ul>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-share js-bu-prepress-share-tools\">\n\t\t\t<span class=\"icon-twitter\"><span>Twitter<\/span><\/span>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"icon-facebook\"><span>Facebook<\/span><\/span>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"icon-action\"><\/span>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\t\n\n\n<p>One of the cool things about sign language, says Naomi Caselli, is that in order to listen to it, you have to be looking at it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s unlike spoken languages, where we don\u2019t have any overt signals of whether a kid, for example, is paying attention to what they\u2019re hearing,\u201d says Caselli, an associate professor in the Deaf Studies and Deaf Education programs at BU Wheelock. (As anyone who has young children or worked with them can attest: more often than not, their attention is elsewhere while an adult is talking.) \u201cBut in ASL, you can tell. If a child isn\u2019t looking, they\u2019re not getting it. And so that\u2019s a really cool window into understanding how kids learn to manage their attention.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That deep dive into visual attention is one of many such research projects underway at BU Wheelock\u2019s new Center on Sign Language and Deaf Education. The Deaf Center, which opened last year, is \u201ca hub for Deaf and signing researchers, educators, creators, and technologists to promote sign languages and Deaf cultures, and to build a world in which the human right to accessible language is realized for all Deaf children,\u201d according to its website.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Center faculty include Amy Lieberman, an associate professor of literacy and literacy education who runs the Language Acquisition &amp; Visual Attention Lab; Franklin Jones, Jr., a lecturer in Deaf studies who studies Black American Sign Language; and Emily Kubicek, a data scientist who studies the relationship between spatial cognition and sign language use. Other researchers, including Caselli, are engaged in projects such as building out sign language technologies similar to what Siri and Alexa are for spoken language. A visiting professor is studying Nicaraguan Sign Language, which was only developed within the last 40 years by young people who needed to communicate in the absence of a standard sign language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The center has partnered with almost every Deaf K\u201312 school in the US to help support the kind of specialized curricula development the schools require.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cEducational approaches that work for hearing kids often don\u2019t work for Deaf kids,\u201d Caselli says. \u201cYou can\u2019t teach reading, for example, by having kids sound things out.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Instead, the center can leverage its research to help schools build out strategies that do work. And in the case of learning to read, the first step is establishing a solid foundation in ASL, which isn\u2019t always a guarantee for Deaf children, many of whom are encouraged to learn spoken language instead of ASL. From there, children can take what they know in one language and essentially transfer it to another one. Learning to read, therefore, becomes more like learning a second language.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With its broad approach, the Deaf Center stands out from the college\u2019s Deaf Studies program in that it \u201ccaptures everything that doesn\u2019t necessarily relate to a degree program,\u201d Caselli says, while also engaging the Deaf community in Boston and beyond.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re the biggest research center on Deaf people and sign language in particular,\u201d she says. \u201cWe\u2019re not interested in trying to make deaf kids hear. We\u2019re interested in language and access to sign language.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are a couple of other schools that do research in this space, but none of them are an R1 institution [higher education institutions that produce a high volume of research]. And that means that we can have a different kind of impact.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the cool things about sign language, says Naomi Caselli, is that in order to listen to it, you have to be looking at it.&nbsp; \u201cIt\u2019s unlike spoken languages, where we don\u2019t have any overt signals of whether a kid, for example, is paying attention to what they\u2019re hearing,\u201d says Caselli, an associate professor [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20791,"featured_media":75506,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"bu_prepress_billboard":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term":"Deaf Studies","_bu_prepress_primary_term_manual":""},"tags":[4955,7149,7164,4057],"bu-publication":[6613],"magazine-article-category":[6805,6628],"magazine-topic":[],"news-article-category":[],"news-topic":[],"bu_edition":[7093],"media_type":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/80699"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/bu-article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20791"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80699"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/80699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88181,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/80699\/revisions\/88181"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80699"},{"taxonomy":"bu-publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-publication?post=80699"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/magazine-article-category?post=80699"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/magazine-topic?post=80699"},{"taxonomy":"news-article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-article-category?post=80699"},{"taxonomy":"news-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-topic?post=80699"},{"taxonomy":"bu_edition","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu_edition?post=80699"},{"taxonomy":"media_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media_type?post=80699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}