ASL video series about Usher syndrome

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As many of you know, if you have ever searched the internet for information about Usher syndrome in American Sign Language (ASL), you won’t find much. You may find videos by individuals, sharing their personal stories but you won’t find a basic, educational series of videos about Usher syndrome all in one place. Right now, the Usher Syndrome Coalition (USC) is in the midst of our yearly “Own the Equinox” (OTE) campaign. The campaign’s goal is to raise awareness, worldwide, about Usher syndrome. Just as a marathon covers 26 miles, OTE runs for 26 days. This year, my friend and USC advisor Kevin Richmond and I decided to create 26 short, captioned ASL vlogs about Usher syndrome – one for every day of the campaign. Kevin, the presenter, is a native signer who has Usher 1B. His background as a professor at the University of VT makes him a natural presenter on these videos. To our knowledge, this is the first time that information of this type will be available in ASL, so we wanted you to know about this new resource.

Response from the community has been terrific. Although we only started posting a few weeks ago, most of the videos have at least several hundred views. Video #11, Kevin’s Story, has been viewed more than 27,000 times! All videos are captioned with transcripts on the Usher Coalition FB page as well as our YouTube Channel.

Here are the topics we’ve already posted: