ASL Aspire wants to gamify STEM education for deaf kids | TechCrunch
Poor literacy skills have plagued the deaf and hard of hearing community for decades. The median literacy rates of deaf high school graduates have languished at a fourth-grade level since the turn of the 20th century, according to the National Center for Special Education Research. Bringing STEM concepts into the mix — the vocabulary for which is limited in standard American Sign Language (ASL) — only gives deaf kids yet another obstacle to success.
That’s the problem Illinois-based startup ASL Aspire, one of the startups that presented at TechCrunch Disrupt’s Startup Battlefield 200, is hoping to solve with its game-based approach to STEM education.
The team at ASL Aspire works with deaf scientists and mathematicians who are standardizing STEM-based vocabulary in ASL to create curricula for teachers to integrate into their existing lesson plans.
