Signing-on-the-Fly: Technology Preferences to Reduce Communication Gap between Hearing Parents and Deaf Children

Over 90 percent of Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) children in the United States are born to hearing parents, who have little to no command of American Sign Language (ASL). This leaves the majority of DHH children at risk of language deprivation in early childhood. This study investigates the design space of Augmented Reality (AR) and wearable technologies in supporting hearing parents to offer sign language environments for young DHH children. We conducted an online survey with 65 participants (hearing/DHH parents and teachers of DHH children aged 6 months to 5 years) to gather preferences and interests of technologies that support hearing parents to deliver ASL on-the-fly, and stay attentive to the DHH child's visual attention during joint toy play. We found that Near-Object Projection is most preferred for real-time ASL delivery, and haptic feedback is most preferred for raising the parent's awareness of a child's attention. Results also show a strong interest in using the proposed technologies in interacting with and maintaining joint attention with DHH children on a daily basis. We discuss key design recommendations that inform the design of future technologies that support just-in-time and contextual-aware communication in ASL, with minimal obtrusion to face-to-face interaction.