Sign Languages Commons^™

A Picture Worth A Thousand Words: Factors Influencing Disability Accommodations, Alicia E. Martin

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Because not all disabilities look the same it is difficult to label a person with disabilities just by looking at them. Given that our knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions impact how we interpret our world and our willingness to act, people, including professors, may be biased toward providing accommodations for those with easily recognizable disabilities and biased against those with non-recognizable disabilities, and this may impact the disabled person’s ability to learn. This thesis aims to address whether professors’ disability-related attitudes, perceptions of accommodation reasonableness, and willingness to provide accommodations differ when the disability is recognizable (student is pictured in a …

Advancing Towards A More Complete Sign Language Detection Application, Shane Angel

Undergraduate University Honors Capstones

The goal of this capstone is to improve the experiences of Deaf and Hard of Hearing individuals who use teleconferencing tools through the use of sign language detection software. Popular teleconferencing applications such as Zoom and Google Meet contain features that can automatically spotlight users when they are speaking, but there is currently no equivalent feature for those who used signed languages to communicate on these platforms. Such a feature would need to utilize a sign language detection program to spotlight individuals, but this technology is early in development and is not currently available for large-scale implementation. This capstone strives …

Mixed Reality Prototype Device Showcase: Using Smart Glasses To Enhance Language Access, Aaron Parker, Connor Switenky, Roshan Mathew, Wendy Dannels

Frameless

While the use of American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters and real-time captioning significantly increases deaf individuals’ ability to participate in a wide variety of functions, there are some limitations. The major problem is that current ways of providing communication and information access to deaf people require them to split their attention between the visual focus of the specific content and the interpreter/captioning display. At any given point in time, deaf people are forced to decide what explanation to miss with subsequent effects on topic comprehension and perceptions of the interaction and environments.

Vr Sound Mapping: Make Sound Accessible For Dhh People In Virtual Reality Environments, Ziming Li, Roshan Peiris

Frameless

In-game audio plays an important role in enhancing the sense of reality and immersion in the gaming experience. In many games, sounds are also used to provide notifications and clues, which are essential to the gameplay. However, in this case, the deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) players may fail to access the information conveyed by sounds, which degrades their gaming experience (Jain et al. 2021).

Creation Of A Neural Network For The American Sign Language To Russian Translation App, John T. Simmons

Capstone Projects

1. A large population of people utilize American Sign Language for their primary method of communication.
2. No commercially available product is available for these people for when they need to communicate with speakers of a foreign language.
3. We must investigate methods to make communication between these two parties easier and more accessible.
4. By using a neural network to classify images of American Sign Language letters, we can build a service to make translation of American Sign Language into foreign languages possible.

An Acoustic Study Of The Monophthongs Of Ulu Terengganu Malay Dialect, Nuwawi Siti Nadiah

Student Works (2020-2029)

Amongst sub-dialects spoken in the region of Terengganu, the dialect of Ulu Terengganu Malay is the most incomprehensible variety that varies greatly in the aspects of pronunciation and lexical as compared to the standard Terengganu dialect. However, the uniqueness of the language is insufficiently addressed by academic scholars, especially acoustic features of the dialect. Through an acoustic analysis method, this research attempted to investigate the quality of monophthongs produced by the Ulu Terengganu Malay speakers. The data was collected from a group of male and female Ulu Terengganu Malay speakers. A word list and pictures were used as instruments in …

Vision And Sensor-Based Signer-Independent Framework For Arabic Sign Language Recognition, Al-Shamayleh Ahmad Sami Abd Alkareem

Student Works (2020-2029)

Hearing and speech-impairment disability is widespread throughout the world. At present, 15 million people have this disability in the Arab world, and about 86% of them come from low- and middle-income countries. Meanwhile, sign language (SL) can be classified into standard Arabic sign language (ArSL) and local Arabic sign language (LArSL). ArSL is the formal standard and is the more acceptable SL in the Arab world; it is also considered as the medium of instructions for schools and universities as well as television news, shows and programmes. With the absence of usable ArSL recognition (ArSLR) platforms, hearing- and speech-impaired people …

Sign & Share: Full-Stack International Video Sharing Website, Shuxu Tian

Undergraduate University Honors Capstones

Inspired by VL2 bilingual story apps that focus on American Sign Language and English, this project provides a new application for sharing multi-lingual signed and written stories to a worldwide audience. VL2 story apps include only ASL and English, and are for purchase; VL2 also sells the code to develop stories in other languages, but the code requires technical expertise to use. My new app uses a special set of tools to allow sharing stories in any signed language and written forms of spoken languages without cost and without the need for technical expertise. Known as Sign and Share, this …

Sensual Cultures: Exploring Sensory Orientation, Lauren Sonnenstrahl Benedict

Undergraduate University Honors Capstones

We use our senses every day, consciously or unconsciously, based on our cultural needs and preferences. These sensory orientations shape and are shaped by what a given culture defines as acceptable. For this reason, different sensory orientations result in different strengths and areas of emphasis and de-emphasis. Becoming aware of different sensory orientations and their associated cultures allows us to realize what we are missing in our own sensory orientations that inform our cultural habits. Familiarity with various sensory orientations may cultivate greater cultural acceptance as well. To analyze and illustrate such differences, an educational app for iPads was created …