Mikayla Smith, a meteorologist from Oklahoma, is making TV weather forecasting more accessible to a bigger audience and in the process is rousing interest in meteorology for the future generation of forecasters. She began the program while forecasting in the Sherman, Texas area.
Mikayla got her introduction to American Sign Language as a little girl in Rockwall when her mom took special education courses while attending college and worked as a special education teacher. Through her many years of learning ASL, she's observed the difficulties that Deaf and hard of hearing people have to deal with in trying to stay updated of breaking news reports as well as current weather conditions. She is enthusiastic about using ASL to convey weather conditions to the D/HoH population.
Videos of Mikayla’s weather forecasts have quickly gone viral. She does hope that her signing of weather reports will motivate other forecasters to understand and learn sign language. She says she is pleased to see the strong impact her signed reports have had on the audience. She does hope the new signing movement will start to spread, thus helping special communities that may not usually be able to get a hold of news reports and weather reports regularly.
As a growing number of weather forecasters and others in the news media learn how to sign their own reports, they could connect better with the Deaf and hard of hearing and even generate a trend of greater inclusiveness for people with various communication needs in the field of information gathering and distribution.
In reaction to the need to better her ASL skills, Mikayla says she’s a little out of practice with her signing but is ensuring to carry out the research needed to be a better D/HoH ally, and in the meantime she is making significant strides toward greater accessibility to news and weather reports for all.
Click the link below to read the full article:
https://www.startasl.com/meteorologist-gets-popular-after-using-american-sign-language-in-her-forecasts/