Clerc Center announces contract award for developing ASL standards

The Clerc Center has awarded a contract for the development of American Sign Language (ASL) content standards for students in kindergarten through 12th grade. These content standards will outline the ASL skills that students should have at each grade level.

The recipient of the contract is an innovative team composed of university-based researchers renowned for their expertise in deaf education, language and literacy development, and ASL assessment; as well as administrators, teachers, and specialists at three elementary and secondary schools for deaf students.

Several contract awardees are affiliated with the National Science Foundation Visual Language and Visual Learning (VL2) center based at Gallaudet. They include researcher Jenny Singleton, affiliate researcher Charlotte Enns from the University of Manitoba, and post-doctoral student Melissa Herzig. VL2 Community Engagement Coordinator Melissa Malzkuhn is a member of the project’s internal review committee.

“The development of ASL content standards is a key component in our ongoing efforts to facilitate linguistic competence for deaf and hard of hearing students in both ASL and English,” said Clerc Center Vice President Edward Bosso. “The importance of this work cannot be overstated and is vital to the academic and linguistic development of deaf and hard of hearing students. The Clerc Center is privileged and honored to be able to provide the necessary support for this work.”