Low literacy skills have plagued the deaf community for decades. According to the National Center for Special Education Research, the median literacy rate for deaf high school graduates has stagnated at the fourth-grade level since the early 20th century. Bringing STEM concepts into the mix, where standard American Sign Language (ASL) has a limited vocabulary, only presents deaf children with additional obstacles to success.
That's the problem Illinois-based startup ASL Aspire, one of the startups announced at TechCrunch Disrupt's Startup Battlefield 200, hopes to solve with a game-based approach to STEM education.
The ASL Aspire team works with Deaf scientists and mathematicians who are standardizing STEM-based vocabulary in ASL to create a curriculum that teachers can incorporate into their existing lesson plans.
ASL Aspire, which officially launched in 2022, will initially target middle school students, but has created a curriculum for students in kindergarten through 12th grade. Aisha Kazi, co-founder and chief operating officer of ASL Aspire, said high school students also benefit from the platform, as many of them lag behind their hearing peers.
Kazi told TechCrunch that co-founder Mona Jawad came up with the idea for the company while attending the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. There, Jawad is pursuing a doctorate in speech and hearing science.
“[Jawad] As she worked directly in the lab with deaf scientists, she realized that the biggest gap in language was in STEM,” Kazi told TechCrunch. “About 10% of Americans are deaf or hard of hearing, but only about 0.1% work in STEM fields.”
During her research, Jawad realized that there was a lot of research available on how to help deaf children learn STEM subjects, but it was difficult to translate those findings from the research world into the commercial world. No one took the step to bring it to fruition.
So in 2021, she asked her friend Kaji, who studied (and is still studying) computer science, if he wanted to start a company with her. And it was one of those, “Sure, what the hell?” According to Kazi's retelling, a couple of 17-year-old freshmen didn't really know what they were getting themselves into.
But since they were still students, they had support from the university, which funded pilots and prototypes of the web app and helped bring the technology and curriculum to local schools.
“It was a blessing in disguise that we were able to do these things so early and be part of the school system from day one,” Kaji said.
In 2023, ASL Aspire completed a pilot in five schools, serving approximately 200 children, primarily in California. The startup is trying to sell directly to school districts in the most remote areas, a difficult sales process at the best of times.
“Budget windows are usually short, from January to March, so it's difficult to step in right away when the budget opens,” said Kazi, adding that ASL Aspire has already taken the time to secure the budget. He pointed out that there is a need to work towards this goal. Before that window opened, we presented our value proposition to school decision makers.
Kazi said the startup has raised $400,000 in research grants and is collaborating with other educational institutions such as Space Center Houston and the St. Louis Zoo.
Next year, ASL Aspire will target boarding schools for the deaf in Fremont and Riverside, if budget talks go well. Kazi also said the team hopes to expand the game-based learning approach beyond STEM to all subjects in the future.
“It's an uphill battle, but it's worth it in the end, because we're not just helping one child; in the end, 2,000 students will be able to use our app. '' said Kazi.