Breaking Sound Barriers

Reported March 2006

WHEATON, Maryland (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- There are over 28 million deaf and hard-of-hearing Americans, yet there are still communication barriers between the deaf and the hearing world. Now, a new technology is breaking sound barriers and lending a helping hand to the hearing impaired.

In a hearing world, many of us take everyday sounds for granted, but for the deaf, living in a silent world is hard. Corinne Vinopol, Ph.D., an educator and president of Institute for Disabilities Research and Training in Wheaton, M.D., says, "The biggest challenge that deaf people face on a day-to-day basis is communication."

Communication is a challenge that electrical engineers are now helping the hearing impaired overcome with an electronic glove that turns American Sign Language gestures into text.

"What it does is detects the position of the fingers and the position of the hand so it translates positions of fingers into letters," says José Hernandez-Rebollar, Ph.D., an electrical engineer at The George Washington University in Washington.

The glove, called Acceleglove, has sensors that send signals from movements of the hand and fingers to a computer. The computer finds the correct word or letter associated with the hand movement and displays the text on the screen. Vinopol says: "It's important to have technology because it's an equalizer. It allows deaf people to function as their maximum within society."

Researchers hope the high-tech glove will bridge the communication gap between the deaf and hearing -- a sure sign of the times.

The glove will be available to the general public within a year and expect the cost to be less than $100. Researchers are also developing the glove to translate sign language to speech.

Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:

Jose L. Hernandez Rebollar, Ph.D., Research Scientist
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
The George Washington University
(202) 994-9425

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