Research shows that English literacy of deaf people in the United States is much lower than that of hearing people.
Most deaf adults read English at the third or fourth grade level.
Because of the lack of reading fluency, English-based assistive technology such as closed captioning on television offers some help in making the hearing world accessible to deaf people, but can only serve as a partial aid. In order to fully bridge the gulf between the deaf and hearing worlds, alternative assistive technologies based on sign language are needed. At present deaf people rely on sign language interpreters for access to spoken English. However, they can not depend on interpreters every day in life mainly due to the high accommodation cost and the difficulty in finding and scheduling qualified interpreters. It would be an economical as well as flexible solution.