American Sign Language Skills Research Articles

A case study of the American Sign Language patterns of a natively-exposed Deaf autistic signer

ABSTRACT Research on the acquisition of American Sign Language (ASL) by deaf autistic children has documented similarities to the linguistic profile of hearing children on the autism spectrum and has identified sign-specific phenomena that could serve as clinical markers of autism in the deaf population. However, the acquisition of a signed language by deaf autistic individuals whose language use appears to be at age-level is not well documented. Here we present a case study of ASL use by a Deaf autistic adolescent exposed to ASL since birth. Data include two video recordings (collected at age 16;11 and 17;4 years) of his spontaneous ASL. Utterances were coded for repetitions, phonological form, fingerspelling, metalinguistic awareness, and facial expressions having grammatical functions. Other data include a writing sample (17;6) and background information obtained from parental interviews and formal psycho-educational evaluations (between ages 14 and 17). Results revealed this adolescent has strong ASL skills including sophisticated vocabulary and semantic content, advanced fingerspelling, and evidence of metalinguistic awareness. His distinctive signing patterns include abundant repetition of phrases, intrusion of non-ASL handshapes, articulation disfluency, reduced facial expressiveness, and a dissociation between fingerspelling and writing skills. The results of this study diversify and broaden discussions of the ways that autism may interact with language development, especially in the visual-gestural modality. Understanding language patterns in autistic signers more fully will improve identification of autism in the deaf population, promote acceptance of diverse signing patterns in the Deaf community, and lead to better support for this population.

Parent American Sign Language skills correlate with child–but not toddler–ASL vocabulary size

ABSTRACT Most deaf children have hearing parents who do not know a sign language at birth and are at risk of limited language input during early childhood. Studying these children as they learn a sign language has revealed that timing of first-language exposure critically shapes language outcomes. But the input deaf children receive in their first language is not only delayed, it is much more variable than most first language learners, as many learn their first language from parents who are themselves new sign language learners. Much of the research on deaf children learning a sign language has considered the role of parent input using broad strokes, categorizing hearing parents as non-native, poor signers, and deaf parents as native, strong signers. In this study, we deconstruct these categories and examine how variation in sign language skills among hearing parents might affect children’s vocabulary acquisition. This study included 44 deaf children between 8- and 60-months-old who were learning American Sign Language (ASL) and had hearing parents who were also learning ASL. We observed an interactive effect of parent ASL proficiency and age, such that parent ASL proficiency was a significant predictor of child ASL vocabulary size, but not among the infants and toddlers. The proficiency of language models can affect acquisition above and beyond age of acquisition, particularly as children grow. At the same time, the most skilled parents in this sample were not as fluent as “native” deaf signers, and yet their children reliably had age-expected ASL vocabularies. Data and reproducible analyses are available at https://osf.io/9ya6h/.

Deaf Children's Engagement with American Sign Language-English Bilingual Storybook Apps.

Design features of American Sign Language (ASL)-English bilingual storybook apps on the tablet computers, based on learning research, are intended to facilitate independent and interactive learning of English print literacy and of ASL skill among young learners. In 2013, the Science of Learning Center on Visual Language and Visual Learning introduced the first in a series of storybook apps for the iPad based on literacy and reading research. The current study, employing a sample of signing deaf children examined children's self-motivated engagement with the various design features presented in the earliest of the apps, The Baobab, and analyzed the relationships of engagement with ASL skill and age of first exposure to ASL, ASL narrative ability, and grade-appropriate English reading ability. Results indicated a robust level of engagement with the app, and a relationship between app pages specifically targeting reading and early exposure and skill levels in ASL. No evidence of relationships between narrative and vocabulary skills and app reading engagement was found. Topics for future research, and strategies for app improvement are discussed.

Psychometric Characteristics of the Visual Communication and Sign Language Checklist.

Since its publication in 2013, the Visual Communication and Sign Language (VCSL) Checklist has been widely utilized to assess the development of early American Sign Language skills of deaf children from birth to age 5. However, little research has been published using the results of VCSL assessments. Notably, no psychometric analyses have been conducted to verify the validity of the VCSL in a population whose characteristics are different from those of the small sample of native signing children from whom the published norms were created. The current paper, using data from the online version of the VCSL (VCSL:O), addresses this shortcoming. Ratings of the 114 VCSL items from 562 evaluations were analyzed using a partial-credit Rasch model. Results indicate that the underlying skill across the age range comprises an adequate single dimension. Within the items' age groupings, however, the dimensionality is not so clear. Item ordering, as well as item fit, is explored in detail. In addition, the paper reports the benefits of using the resulting Rasch scale scores, which, unlike the published scoring strategy that focuses on basal and ceiling performance, makes use of the ratings of partial credit, or emerging, skills. Strategies for revising the VCSL are recommended.

Comparing stimulus equivalence‐based instruction to self‐study of videos to teach examples of sign language to adults

AbstractThe current study compared equivalence‐based instruction (EBI) to self‐study of American Sign Language (ASL) videos to teach eight 3‐member classes of signs with 24 college students. Four of the equivalence classes consisted of verbs (i.e., throw, touch, blow, spin) and four classes were object nouns (i.e., truck, dollar, egg, ball). Each class consisted of (a) a picture corresponding to the targeted sign, (b) a video clip depicting the sign's topography, and (c) a printed corresponding word. Pretests and posttests assessed the degree to which participants (a) showed emergence of classes during match‐to‐sample (MTS) tests, (b) could sign both single words and verb‐noun pairs (i.e., speaker tasks), and (c) could comply with signed requests consisting of ASL verb‐noun pairs (i.e., listener tasks). EBI consisted of training the AB relation (picture to video clip) followed by tests of all possible derived relations. The AC relation (picture to printed word) was not trained because it was assumed to be present in the participants' repertoires. Self‐study consisted of viewing video clips of the eight ASL signs simultaneously presented with the printed word. The MTS posttest showed equivalence classes emerged for all participants from both EBI and self‐study groups. In addition, all EBI participants met passing criterion for emitting all single signs, all verb‐noun sign pairs, and they complied with all listener tasks. In contrast, only 4 of 12 participants from the self‐study group emitted the single signs. After re‐exposure to self‐study, most participants then passed all posttests. These results are important because they demonstrate recombinative generalization of ASL signs, which increases the utility of ASL skills.

Deaf Children's ASL Vocabulary and ASL Syntax Knowledge Supports English Knowledge.

The current study contributes empirical data to our understanding of how knowledge of American Sign Language (ASL) syntax aids reading print English for deaf children who are bilingual and bimodal in ASL and English print. The first analysis, a conceptual replication of Hoffmeister ( 2000), showed that performance on the American Sign Language Assessment Instrument correlated with the Sanford Achievement Test-Reading Comprehension (SAT-RC) and the Rhode Island Test of Language Structures (RITLS, Engen & Engen, 1983). The second analysis was a quantile regression using ASL assessments to predict English print abilities. Different ASL skills were important for English reading comprehension (SAT-RC) versus understanding English syntax (RITLS); the relationship between ASL skills and English print performance also varied for students at different English print ability levels. Strikingly, knowledge of ASL syntax was robustly correlated with knowledge of English syntax at all ability levels. Our findings provide novel and strong evidence for the impact of ASL on the development of English literacy.

Measuring Receptive ASL Skills in Novice Signers and Nonsigners.

We tested the utility of two standardized measures of receptive skills in American Sign Language (ASL) in hearing adults who are novice signers: the ASL Comprehension Test (ASL-CT; Hauser, P. C., Paludneviciene, R., Riddle, W., Kurz, K. B., Emmorey, K., & Contreras, J. (2016). American Sign Language Comprehension Test: A tool for sign language researchers. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 21(1), 64-69. https://doi.org/10.1093/deafed/env051) and the ASL Receptive Skills Test (ASL-RST; Allen, T. E., & Enns, C. (2013). A psychometric study of the ASL Receptive Skills Test when administered to deaf 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children. Sign Language Studies, 14(1), 58-79. https://doi.org/10.1353/sls.2015.0006; Enns, C. J., & Herman, R. C. (2011). Adapting the Assessing British Sign Language Development: Receptive Skills Test into American Sign Language. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 16(3), 362-374. https://doi.org/10.1093/deafed/enr004). We also administered these tests to hearing nonsigners, with the goal of identifying items where the correct answer can be readily deduced through iconicity and/or test-taking skills, even by people with no prior ASL knowledge. We predicted that removing such items would strengthen the correlation between test score and ASL experience (as measured by semesters of instruction). We found that this relationship was stronger for the ASL-CT than the ASL-RST in this population, but still weaker than previously reported, and not substantially improved by any item selection strategy that we employed.

Counting Differently: Assessing Mathematics Achievement of Signing Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children Through a Unique Lens.

Limited studies exist that connect using signed language with mathematics performance of deaf and hard of hearing children. In the present study, the authors examined 257 participants and compared their results on the Northwest Evaluation Association: Measures of Academic Progress (NWEA MAP) to their results on an assessment of American Sign Language (ASL) skills. It was found that better ASL skills tended to result in better MAP performance. These results are moderated by factors such as age, gender, parental hearing status, and learning disability identification.

University American Sign Language Learners: Self-Awareness and Error Analysis within a Narrative Context

Second-language learners of American Sign Language (ASL) often struggle in the acquisition of more complex ASL aspects, such as role shift, constructed action, and eye gaze to represent characters and their actions with narratives. These learners also often overestimate their ASL skill level. This study investigated errors in second modality, second language (M2L2) university learners' ASL narrative retellings through rating comparisons (i.e., agreements and disagreements) between learners themselves and their instructor. Learners engaged in repeated viewings of ASL models of two Signing Naturally stories, Timber and Gum, paired with instructor analysis, modeling, and feedback on learners' productions within a sociocultural framework. Learners' self-evaluations were compared to instructor evaluations using an itemized list of narrative episode details and options for how they were produced to identify where these evaluations were in agreement or not. Overall agreement was high (i.e., M = 92%), however, agreement across specific ASL aspects, including role shift, constructed action, and accurate sign production, varied to a greater extent (i.e., 89–94%). Two types of disagreements occurred: those in which learners rated a detail as absent while the instructor rated it as present, and those in which learners rated a detail as present while the instructor rated it as absent. Omissions occurred infrequently, in which both the learner and instructor agreed that a detail was absent. The specific instructional framework used in this study and implications for university-level ASL instruction are discussed in this article.

American Sign Language (ASL) development: Deaf students’ ASL skills across age and time and implications for ASL instruction

ABSTRACT Few American Sign Language (ASL) assessments are readily available for educators to administer and score to document deaf students’ skill levels and direct ASL instruction. Even fewer studies include deaf students with intellectual disabilities or document deaf students’ ASL skills across time. The present study reports deaf school-aged students’ receptive and expressive ASL skills using two readily-available assessments, the American Sign Language Receptive Skills Test (ASL-RST) and an ASL handshape sign generation task. Students attended a residential school for the deaf with a bilingual (i.e. ASL and written English) philosophy in the United States and were assessed across a four-year period. Results for a longitudinal subset of 29 students across three consecutive years are also included. In general, receptive skills strongly and significantly correlated with age, while more variation was found in expressive ASL phonological skills. Longitudinally, most students increased their receptive and expressive skills. Scores did not correspond with years at the school site, which was used as a proxy for years of ASL exposure. Results provide an age-band basis by which educators and researchers can compare deaf children’s sign language skills with their same-aged deaf peers on two readily available ASL assessments. Researchers can replicate this process for children and youth who use other sign languages as well. Implications for sign language instruction and future research are addressed.

Early visual language skills affect the trajectory of literacy gains over a three-year period of time for preschool aged deaf children who experience signing in the home

Previous research has established a correlation between literacy skills and sign language skills among deaf children raised in signing families, but little research has examined the impact of early signing skills on the rate of growth of emergent literacy in early childhood. A subset of data was extracted from a larger dataset containing national longitudinal data from a three-year investigation of early literacy development of deaf children who were between the ages of three and six at the outset of the study. Selection criteria for inclusion in this limited sample included: 1) being rated as having little or no access to spoken language and 2) being raised in homes in which signs were regularly used as a means of communication (N = 56). Our purpose was twofold: 1) to examine and describe the trajectories of growth in letter and word identification skill for this sample in relation to the participants’ initial ages; and 2) to assess the degree to which the presence or deaf parents in the home (DoD) and the receptive American Sign Language (ASL) skills of the participants impacted both the level of emerging print literacy and its rate of growth over the three year period. We hypothesized that both the presence of a deaf parent in the home and the acquisition of ASL skills, a strong native language, would contribute to both the overall letter and word identification skills and to the rates of growth of this skill over time. Results indicated that having a deaf parent did, indeed, impact emergent literacy attainment, but its effect was rendered nonsignificant when ASL skill was taken into consideration. Possession of stronger ASL skills, whether or not the children had deaf parents, contributed significantly to both the levels and rate of growth. The findings contribute to the body of work that emphasizes the importance early language skills (spoken or signed) to later academic success and dispels the myth that deaf children with deaf parents have exclusive access to the acquisition of these skills.

Measuring intelligibility in signed languages

ABSTRACTIntelligibility of spoken languages is a widely discussed construct; however, intelligibility, as it pertains to signed languages, has rarely been considered. This study provides an initial investigation of the construct of intelligibility in American Sign Language (ASL) and evaluates potential measures for self-report and expert ratings of sign intelligibility that examined the frequency of understanding, amount of understanding, and ease of understanding. Participants were 66 college students (42 Deaf, 24 hearing) who had self-rated ASL skills ranging from poor to excellent. Participants rated their own intelligibility in ASL and then provided a signed language sample through a picture description task. Language samples were reviewed by an expert rater and measures of intelligibility were completed. Results indicated that expert ratings of sign intelligibility across all measures were significantly and positively correlated. Understanding of the signer was predicted by the amount of understanding, frequency of understanding, and ASL production skills, while understanding the picture being described was predicted by ease of understanding and ASL grammar skills. Self- and expert ratings of sign intelligibility using the ASL version of the Intelligibility in Context Scale were not significantly different. Self-report of sign intelligibility for viewers of different familiarity using the ICS-ASL was found not to be feasible due to many participants not being in contact with ASL users in the relationships defined by the measure. In conclusion, this preliminary investigation suggests that sign intelligibility is a construct worthy of further investigation.

ASL and English bilingual Shared Book Reading: An exploratory intervention for signing deaf children

ABSTRACTAn exploratory study was implemented with bilingual deaf children using a quasi-experimental pre- and posttest design with a 10-week American Sign Language (ASL) and English bilingual Shared Book Reading intervention. Standardized and research-made instruments were used to evaluate ASL and English skills. Intervention effects showed improvements in Receptive ASL skills, Book Reading, and the ability to draw and describe drawings in both languages. Growth in visual phonology was evident in the drawings, and no relationship between auditory phonology and English word identification was found. The results provide implications for early literacy instruction with suggestions for future research.

Fingerspelling as a Novel Gateway into Reading Fluency in Deaf Bilinguals.

Studies have shown that American Sign Language (ASL) fluency has a positive impact on deaf individuals’ English reading, but the cognitive and cross-linguistic mechanisms permitting the mapping of a visual-manual language onto a sound-based language have yet to be elucidated. Fingerspelling, which represents English orthography with 26 distinct hand configurations, is an integral part of ASL and has been suggested to provide deaf bilinguals with important cross-linguistic links between sign language and orthography. Using a hierarchical multiple regression analysis, this study examined the relationship of age of ASL exposure, ASL fluency, and fingerspelling skill on reading fluency in deaf college-age bilinguals. After controlling for ASL fluency, fingerspelling skill significantly predicted reading fluency, revealing for the first-time that fingerspelling, above and beyond ASL skills, contributes to reading fluency in deaf bilinguals. We suggest that both fingerspelling—in the visual-manual modality—and reading—in the visual-orthographic modality—are mutually facilitating because they share common underlying cognitive capacities of word decoding accuracy and automaticity of word recognition. The findings provide support for the hypothesis that the development of English reading proficiency may be facilitated through strengthening of the relationship among fingerspelling, sign language, and orthographic decoding en route to reading mastery, and may also reveal optimal approaches for reading instruction for deaf and hard of hearing children.

An Alternative Approach to Early Literacy: The Effects of ASL in Educational Media on Literacy Skills Acquisition for Hearing Children

Early childhood educators need access to research-based practices and materials to help all children learn to read. Some theorists have suggested that individuals learn to read through “dual coding” (i.e., a verbal code and a nonverbal code) and may benefit from more than one route to literacy (e.g., dual coding theory). Although deaf children can successfully learn to read through American Sign Language (ASL) without sound, few have examined the contributions of sign language as a potential mode, within the verbal code, for hearing children. The purpose of the current investigation was to examine the effects of an educational video that utilizes ASL, in addition to other verbal and nonverbal content, on hearing preschoolers’ early ASL and literacy skills. Participants (N = 77) were randomly assigned to one of three groups: some viewed the video in ASL with sound; some viewed in ASL and without sound; and others did not view the video. Targeted ASL and early literacy skills were assessed before and after viewing. Statistical analyses determined whether scores changed from pretest to posttest, and results showed significant gains for children who viewed a combination of sound and ASL. Although gains were not found on the standardized measure of print and word awareness skills, the results suggest that young hearing children learned the content and skills that were explicitly taught in a video that utilized ASL, fingerspelling and print along with sound. Such results suggest that a visual language, ASL, may serve as an alternative route to literacy development.

Assessing Literacy in Deaf Individuals: Neurocognitive Measurement and Predictors ed. by D. A. Morere, T. Allen (review)

Reviewed by: Assessing Literacy in Deaf Individuals: Neurocognitive Measurement and Predictors ed. by D. A. Morere, T. Allen Jennifer Beal-Alvarez (bio) Assessing Literacy in Deaf Individuals: Neurocognitive Measurement and Predictors, edited by D. A. Morere and T. Allen ( New York : Springer , 2013 , 268 pp., cloth, $129 , ISBN: 978-1-4614-5268-3 ) Using a toolkit of thirty modified and newly developed assessments administered to ninety deaf college students, seventeen authors associated with Gallaudet University’s Visual Language and Visual Learning (VL2) center investigated how deaf college students who learn via a visual pathway in the (near) absence of auditory knowledge performed on measures of neurocognitive and achievement factors. Through a different, not deficit, model of learning, educators and researchers can design pedagogies that optimally account for cognitive, linguistic, and academic differences in the learning of deaf students. The Toolkit assessments and results are presented in thirteen chapters within four separate book parts. Part 1 establishes the foundation of the Toolkit Project by detailing limitations inherent in current assessments for people who use American Sign Language (ASL), including reliance on spoken English, lack of deaf participants in norms, and inadequate test interpretations based on bias in the content or format. This discussion is expanded in chapter 11 and addresses assessment translation issues, including word frequency, equivalency, complexity, and perspective taking among languages. For example, when rendered in ASL, some English phrases require inclusion of spatial relation between objects and selection of perspective from which to interpret the sentence; these elements are not included in the original test language and may require higher levels of processing and interpretation skills on the part of the test-taker. However, educators and researchers must balance the risks inherent in assessments conducted via ASL with the great need for these assessments. [End Page 91] Chapter 1 briefly reviews each assessment in the Toolkit and provides an index of assessment abbreviations; however, due to the large number of assessments and constructs, a table including the function(s) and illustrations or computer screenshots of the assessments would be helpful to the reader. Participant recruitment and background characteristics are reviewed in chapter 2. The Toolkit sample of participants was skewed in favor of females (68%), early onset of deafness, deaf parents, and preference for ASL. The fifteen demographic tables presented in chapter 2 provide a snapshot of the variability within the deaf student population. At this point I suggest a results-oriented reader immediately jump to chapter 13 for the short and sweet summary of assessments and implications. I was not disappointed. This chapter raises and answers two overarching questions: Yes, ten cohesive factors from the Toolkit assessments clarify the neurocognitive and achievement factors of signing deaf college students; and yes, these factors are affected by differences in background characteristics, with results reinforcing the critical role of early exposure to visual language, both ASL and English. Table 13.4 provides a list of all factors with related Toolkit assessments, which naturally leads the reader to individual chapters for detailed overviews of each assessment. Descriptive statistics and correlational results are included in easily readable tables within each chapter. Part 2 reviews individual assessments and results related to general cognitive functioning, visuospatial ability, and memory and learning. Chapter 3 contains a detailed yet understandable review of Rasch analysis, in which test item difficulty and participant ability are analyzed to examine if an assessment encompasses a range of both. Executive functions, their relations to academic and life skills, and results within the deaf population are reviewed. Based on the premise that ASL is a spatial language that incorporates both visuospatial memory (the ability to remember and recall information about objects in space) and mental rotation (the ability to mentally manipulate multidimensional objects) skills into its linguistic structure, chapter 4 provides overviews of related assessments and results. Overall, visuospatial ability appears to have broader relations with academic functioning and linguistic memory, while mental rotation appears to have a more direct effect on ASL skills. [End Page 92] A significantly longer chapter 5 reviews working memory literature, including translation issues unique to the deaf population: sign length effect, possible capacity differences in auditory versus visual working memory, and phonological similarity in stimuli...

Bilingual Deaf Students’ Phonological Awareness in ASL and Reading Skills in English

The sources of knowledge that individuals use to make similarity judgments about words are thought to tap underlying phonological representations. This study addresses the issue of segmental representation by investigating bilingual deaf students’ (a) awareness of American Sign Language (ASL) phonological structure; (b) the relationships between ASL phonological awareness (ASL-PA) and written English word recognition and reading comprehension skill, and (c) the question of whether age and/or reading ability would differentially affect performance on an ASL-PA task in fifty bilingual deaf children (ages 7–18) attending schools for deaf children in Western Canada. In the ASL-PA task, minimal contrasts between ASL parameters (handshape, movement, and location; H, M, and L, respectively) were systematically manipulated. The results show significant differences in deaf students’ ASL phonological awareness, with discrimination accuracy improving with age and reading ability. Significant relationships between children’s second language (L2) reading skills and first language (L1) phonological awareness skills were found. Evidence of rich metalinguistic knowledge that children with developing L1 phonological skills bring to the acquisition of L2 reading skills may have practical implications for the education of bilingual deaf children.

Atypical signed language development: A case study of challenges with visual–spatial processing

In signed languages, the articulatory space in front of the signer is used grammatically, topographically, and to depict a real or imagined space around a signer and thus is an important consideration in signed language acquisition. It has been suggested that children who acquire signed languages rely on concomitant visual–spatial development to support their linguistic development. We consider the case of a native-signing deaf adolescent female with average intelligence who had been reported to struggle with spatial aspects of American Sign Language (ASL) as a child. Results of a battery of linguistic and nonlinguistic tests suggest that she has relatively good ASL skills with the exception of some specific difficulties on spatial tasks that require attention to ASL and nonlinguistic topographic space or changes in visual perspective (e.g., classifiers and referential shift). This child has some difficulties with visual–spatial abilities, and we suggest that this has affected her acquisition of those aspects of ASL that are heavily dependent on visual–spatial processing.

Reading Books With Young Deaf Children: Strategies for Mediating Between American Sign Language and English

Research on shared reading has shown positive results on children's literacy development in general and for deaf children specifically; however, reading techniques might differ between these two populations. Families with deaf children, especially those with deaf parents, often capitalize on their children's visual attributes rather than primarily auditory cues. These techniques are believed to provide a foundation for their deaf children's literacy skills. This study examined 10 deaf mother/deaf child dyads with children between 3 and 5 years of age. Dyads were videotaped in their homes on at least two occasions reading books that were provided by the researcher. Descriptive analysis showed specifically how deaf mothers mediate between the two languages, American Sign Language (ASL) and English, while reading. These techniques can be replicated and taught to all parents of deaf children so that they can engage in more effective shared reading activities. Research has shown that shared reading, or the interaction of a parent and child with a book, is an effective way to promote language and literacy, vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, and metalinguistic awareness (Snow, 1983), making it critical for educators to promote shared reading activities at home between parent and child. Not all parents read to their children in the same way. For example, parents of deaf children may present the information in the book differently due to the fact that signed languages are visual rather than spoken. In this vein, we can learn more about what specific connections deaf parents make to the English print. Exploring strategies deaf mothers may use to link the English print through the use of ASL will provide educators with additional tools when working with all parents of deaf children. This article will include a review of the literature on the benefits of shared reading activities for all children, the relationship between ASL and English skill development, and the techniques deaf parents use when reading with their deaf children. Following this is the presentation of a study that was conducted on specific techniques deaf parents use in bridging ASL to English as they read with their deaf children.

Communication Connections: Service Learning and American Sign Language

This article describes a connection between service learning and American Sign Language (ASL) instruction. The Deaf community served as communication partners for university students, enabling them to use language skills in a natural setting. The rationale and implementation of pairing ASL with service learning are presented. A review of one study provides information about student perceptions of service learning, and a second study presents evidence about the development of ASL skills through a service learning experience. Service learning proved to be a valuable teaching method for ASL instruction, facilitating an increase in cultural awareness and ASL skills. Students' anecdotal evidence about service learning experiences indicated that they gained insights beyond just the improvement in language skills. The connection between service learning and ASL instruction is advantageous because students gained cultural understanding as well as language skills. This course design could be used at other institutions where a Deaf community is accessible.