Mikayla Smith, a meteorologist from Oklahoma, is currently making TV weather forecasting a lot more accessible to a bigger audience and in the process is rousing interest in meteorology for the next generation of weather forecsters. She began the program while reporting in the Sherman, Texas area.
Mikayla was introduced to American Sign Language as a small girl in Rockwall when her mother took special education courses while attending college and worked as a special education teacher. Throughout her many years of learning ASL, she has observed the challenges that Deaf and hard of hearing individuals have to deal with in attemping to be updated of breaking news reports and also the latest weather. She’s enthusiastic about employing ASL to share local weather conditions to the D/HoH population.
Videos of Mikayla’s weather forecasts have quickly become trending. She does hope that her signing of weather reports will inspire other forecasters to understand and learn sign language. She says she’s delighted to see the solid impact her signed forecasts have had on the general public. She does hope the new signing movement will begin to spread, and thus helping special communities that might not usually be able to obtain news as well as weather reports frequently.
As a lot more weather forecasters and others in the news media learn how to sign their reports, they can relate better with the Deaf and hard of hearing and also establish a trend of greater inclusiveness for the people with different communication needs in the world of info gathering and distribution.
In reaction to the call to improve her sign language skills, Mikayla says she’s quite out of practice with her signing but is making sure to do the research that is needed to be a better D/HoH ally, and in the meantime making big progress toward greater accessibility to news and weather reports for all.
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