SEATTLE, April 24 — The deaf-mute community primarily uses sign language to communicate, but this can cause barriers to communication as not everyone understands it.

Two University of Washington students, Thomas Pryor and Navid Azodi, have found a way around this issue by inventing SignAloud, which are gloves that translate American Sign Language (ASL) into text and speech.

According to Pryor, the gloves work by utilising sensors on the hand and wrist to measure hand position and hand movement. The data is then sent to a computer via Bluetooth for processing.

Once the word or sign is recognised, the computer then uploads the corresponding word or phrase in text and speech, he added.

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Azodi said, “Access to communication is a basic fundamental human right, and every single person deserves to be a part of the global community.”

“However, those who are deaf and mute communicate differently than everyone else. They primarily use sign language, while the rest of the world communicate verbally.

“This puts the deaf-mute community at a disadvantage, because like a foreigner in another country, they can’t communicate like everybody else.”

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The pair won the Undergraduate Team category with a prize of US$10,000 (RM39,000) when they submitted their invention to the Lemelson-MIT “Use it!” Student Prize competition, a nationwide contest that awards the most inventive undergraduate and graduate students.

Thomas Pryor (left) and Navid Azodi demonstrate their invention, SignAloud, which are gloves that can translate sign language into text and speech. — Picture via YouTube/Lemelson MIT
Thomas Pryor (left) and Navid Azodi demonstrate their invention, SignAloud, which are gloves that can translate sign language into text and speech. — Picture via YouTube/Lemelson MIT