Here’s a riddle: What has many hands, doubles its size every year, and has a voice in programs all over Temple’s College of Public Health – without making a sound? Answer: Sign language.

One of the College of Public Health’s fastest-growing programs, American Sign Language (ASL) has grown from one course offered in 2013 to nine in the Fall 2016 semester – and there are waiting lists. ASL attracts students in programs such as audiology, speech-language pathology, occupational therapy, and social work -- fields in which sign language is a vital communication tool.

“It’s very important for [audiologists and other practitioners] to be able to interact with people they’re providing services to,” says Meghan Rainone, an ASL instructor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at the College of Public Health.

Temple isn’t alone in its ASL growth. “Research has shown that many colleges have a high demand for ASL classes and a high need for ASL professors,” says Jonathan Hartmann, another instructor in the program.

But the reason ASL has made its way into the zeitgeist isn’t entirely clear. Like many other cultures that historically have lived outside the mainstream, ASL and deaf culture have been embraced by pop culture lately. The TV show Switched at Birth features a deaf character, and more recently Nyle DiMarco drew tremendous attention as a deaf dreamboat on America’s Next Top Model and then later as the season 22 champion of Dancing with the Stars.

“I do appreciate the free PR, because people are now becoming interested in sign language,” says Rainone, who was born deaf to hearing parents. “Plus, I think people are naturally fascinated by sign language.” Once they step inside the culture, though, hearing people often find that ASL and deafness are profoundly different from “English with gestures,” she says. From within the sign language community, the #whyisign campaign has drawn more than 20,000 Facebook likes and many more tweets from people sharing their stories about why they’ve learned to sign. “There’s so much information – people are signing and explaining so much. And the stories are so inspiring – many hearing parents say they learned to sign because their child is deaf,” Rainone says.

American Sign Language is as much a language as English, Arabic, or Greek. It has its own grammar and many regional dialects (there are nine different signs for “birthday,” for instance). And just as languages are formed or shared within distinct cultural groups, deafness, too, is its own culture – one whose members don’t consider themselves to be disabled. That’s something that students in Temple’s ASL courses are learning firsthand.

“My knowledge of deaf culture and ASL was pretty limited prior to taking ASL classes,” says Shelby Northup, a senior speech-language-hearing major. “I only knew a few letters of the alphabet in ASL prior to taking formal classes. Deaf culture intrigued me because I lived very close to Scranton State School for the Deaf, and students from there came to my kindergarten to teach us the alphabet.”

Currently, the ASL program at the College of Public Health offers four levels of language instruction and a certificate option that shows students are conversant in American Sign Language. Rainone is in the process of getting a deaf culture course approved, adding new language classes, and hiring additional instructors. She also hopes to make the program a recognized community resource for hearing parents of deaf children and others who want to learn ASL.

Erica Wiler, a senior speech-language-hearing major who began taking ASL as a sophomore and is now a preceptor for Rainone’s ASL I class, expects to use ASL in her work with people with communication and developmental disorders. “I hope to be able to better communicate with clients and offer them alternative ways to communicate,” she says. Beyond its utility, Wiler says, ASL has introduced her to new people as well as new aspects of herself. “There is a beautiful thing about communicating by facial expressions and signs. I never realized how expressive I could be and how freeing it is to communicate with a language that allows you to be so open,” she says.

Now enrolled in ASL IV, Northup is also the vice president of Talking Hands, the student-run club that provides opportunities to practice signing skills at events such as a monthly dinner, which enforces a strict no-talking rule – a challenge she says is well worth the effort. “I still get nervous when I attend deaf community events,” Northup says. “My best advice is to remember deaf people are people too! They want to engage in conversation just as much as anyone else. Simply reach out.”