Assessing the Impact of an Introductory Medical American Sign Language (ASL) Seminar on the ASL Knowledge and...

Introduction: There are approximately 50 million people in the US who identify as Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing (HoH), of which 1 million use American Sign Language (ASL) as their primary language. Despite this, many healthcare providers are inexperienced when communicating with Deaf/HoH patients. Methods: We designed and facilitated a workshop to teach introductory medical ASL to healthcare professional students, led by a college Linguistics professor and Deaf/HoH individual. A pre- and post-workshop survey was administered to attendees, which measured their self-reported ASL fluency, confidence in performing ASL gestures, and confidence in initiating healthcare-based interactions with Deaf/HoH patients. Results: Thirteen attendees enrolled in the study, of whom 12 completed both the pre- and post-workshop surveys; 9 were medical students and 4 were physician assistant students. Upon workshop completion, 11/12 reported an improvement in ASL fluency, 10/12 reported an improvement in confidence in properly performing ASL gestures, and 9/12 reported an improvement in confidence in initiating healthcare-based interactions with Deaf/HoH patients. Of those with no prior experience in ASL (10/12 participants), 100% of them reported an improvement in ASL fluency. Discussion: This study is the first to describe the development and implementation of an introductory medical ASL workshop for healthcare students. Our results suggest this style of education has strong potential for raising awareness of the Deaf/HoH patient population and modestly improving self-perceived ASL fluency and confidence of healthcare students. Early education in medical ASL is critical to developing culturally-competent healthcare providers and narrowing the gap in healthcare disparities for Deaf/HoH patients.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40670-026-02658-y.