fulfilling our - Alumni - DePaul University

12
School OF COMPUTER SCIENCE,
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Web-based computer-animated figures
created by members of CTI’s American
Sign Language Project help healthcare
professionals communicate with their
deaf patients.
DePaul team gives ‘invisible minority’ a voice
Imagine you’re in a country where you don’t
know the language. You’re sick and need
a doctor; only the doctor doesn’t speak a
word of English. How confident would you
feel about the care you would receive?
This is the scenario faced by many of an
estimated 1 million deaf Americans — right
here in their own country. That’s because
American Sign Language (ASL), not English,
is the first language of the deaf community.
In fact, the average reading level — in
English — of those born deaf is third or
fourth grade, and just 5 percent
are considered fluent in English.
“The deaf are an invisible minority in our
society,” says Rosalee Wolfe, a professor
at DePaul University’s School of Computer
Science, Telecommunications and
Information Systems (CTI) who specializes
in human-computer interaction. “How
can doctors and other health professionals
communicate information about medical
diagnoses or treatments if they can’t even
communicate on a basic level with their
deaf clients?”
Bridging this gap is the mission of Wolfe
and fellow researchers and students at CTI.
As part of the American Sign Language
Project — directed by Wolfe and colleague
John McDonald — they are using computer
technology and linguistics research to create
a pioneering software program to train
medical professionals in ASL.
The program features an animated onscreen
figure demonstrating various signs,
from simple words to complex medical
terms. It is unique for its 3-D perspective,
including views from the front, side and top.
This makes it a valuable tool not only for
learning ASL but for practicing it, which is
the biggest hurdle to fluency.
Funded in part by a $10,000 grant from the
Michael Reese Health Trust, the DePaul team
works in consultation with the Sinai Deaf
Access Program in Chicago to ensure the
signs are accurate and effective.
“We didn’t consider how integral facial
expressions were to sign language, for
example,” says Jerry Schnepp, a DePaul
doctoral candidate. “We tested the program
with deaf patients at Mt. Sinai Hospital,
and they said our signs looked realistic but
without facial expressions they were more
difficult to interpret.” After some further
finessing, the program will be implemented
throughout the hospital as a pilot.
The collaborative nature of the CTI project,
with each team member contributing
different skills and expertise — artificial
intelligence, database technology, computer
graphics and more — is what appeals to
Schnepp.
“My experience with this team has been so
exciting that it has changed the course of
my professional life,” he says. A musician
who enrolled in CTI to learn more about
production programs, Schnepp now studies
how nonmanual “signs,” such as facial
expressions and even body language, affect
meaning in ASL. He plans to continue
working with the deaf community.
Besides the high-level technology education
CTI is known for, the students on the project
have benefited tremendously from the
real-life involvement, including interviewing
medical professionals and members of the
deaf community, working with them to
fine-tune the program and even exhibiting
at trade shows. “The ASL Project offers a
rich learning environment in an area that
benefits an underserved population,” Wolfe
says. “That is the very essence of the DePaul
experience.”