School Continues Long-Standing Partnership with Hard-of-Hearing and Deaf Community

Sign Language Program Grows its Enrollment

Karen Emmorey, LLCN Director, with Reed Gershwind, ASL Program Director

French, Spanish, even Latin-these are the languages that typically dominate the educational landscape nationwide for meeting the "second language requirement." However, San Diego State University has joined the growing list of universities to recognize American Sign Languag as meeting the goal of ensuring all students approach bilingualism. The ASL program, run by the School of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, is headed by Reed Gershwind, a leading figure in the Deaf community. The program boasts a current enrollment of roughly 360 students who are enrolled in a total of 17 courses, showing significant growth from the five courses offered three years ago when ASL first became a second language fulfillment option. In addition, the number of Deaf ASL instructors is continuing to increase.

Beyond the three levels of ASL currently being taught (from beginner's to advanced), other courses exist to study issues pertinent to the Deaf community and their language. These include an introduction to Deaf culture as a sociology fulfillment and an advanced analysis of the linguistic structure of ASL.

"ASL is a visually beautiful language," says Gershwind, "and knowledge of the language will benefit many people in various service fields."

Researchers Investigate the Science behind Sign Language

Further addressing issues related to signed language is the Laboratory for Language and Cognitive Neuroscience (LLCN), also under the auspices of the School of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences. Under the leadership of Karen Emmorey, Ph.D., researchers at LLCN study sign languages and ask critical questions such as, "What is universal about human language?" and "Is the deaf, signing brain different from the hearing, speaking brain?"

LLCN's research is used by educators who design programs for deaf students, policy makers who decide about bilingual and deafness-related issues and scientists who study language. The laboratory is staffed by a team of 13 Deaf and hearing researchers, as well as Emmorey, who is also a professor in the school and came to SDSU from the Salk Institute.

In an effort to further share with the community SDSU's commitment to Deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals, LLCN held an open house last December.

Marlowe Fischer, Lecturer, is President-Elect of the California Speech-Language-Hearing Association

Marlowe Fischer, a lecturer in the School of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences since 1980, has been elected future president of the state branch of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA). Besides teaching in the undergraduate curriculum, serving as the credential advisor for the school and coordinating student-teaching placements within the school, Fischer also has a private practice as a speech-language pathologist.

Fischer's election to president represents, once again, the high-caliber of instructors and students in the School of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences and offers one more contribution to the professionalism of the school.