Contact us by email at interpreting@alsglobal.net or via phone at 1-800-951-5020 for a free estimate on our ASL and CART services.

Trusted CART & ASL Services in Little Rock, AR

American Language Services has been helping businesses and other entities reach the deaf and hard of hearing community for more than 35 years. While in-person interpreting, at one time, was the only option, recent technological advances opened the door to other options. Since we offer full-service Video Remote Interpreting (VRI), this article will be comparing Virtual American Sign Language (ASL) interpreting with Communication Access Real-Time Translation (AKA- Closed Captioning & Real Time Subtitling) known as CART.

 Please note that according to the American Disability Act (ADA) that deaf and hard of hearing community have the legal right to receive full access through the use of ASL and or CART services. The ADA prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities and providing ASL interpreters for deaf individuals complies with federal law and promotes equal accessibility.

Some interesting Facts About the City of Little Rock

• Little Rock will forever be linked to President Bill Clinton. But, despite popular belief, he wasn’t born there. He was born in Hope, Arkansas.
• Bill Clinton was, however, elected as the governor of Arkansas in 1978 at the age of 32, making him one of the youngest governors in the nation ever.
• That means that although Bill Clinton and his wife (and potential presidential candidate) Hillary were not from Little Rock, their daughter Chelsea Clinton and the very famous cat who went on to be dubbed the First Feline, Socks Clinton, both were.
• Next time you’re chowing down on those awesome brown-n-serve rolls at Thanksgiving dinner, just remember that they were invented in the 1930s at Meyer’s Bakery right in Little Rock.
• Now that’s a big dam. At 4,226 feet long, the Big Dam Bridge is the country’s longest pedestrian and cycling bridge in the country. No vehicles allowed.
• C-130 aircrafts get the luxury treatment at the Little Rock Air Force Base, which is the largest training and maintenance facility for the aircrafts in the U.S.
• Heifer International, the global hunger and poverty-relief organization and charity, is headquartered in Little Rock. They have distributed livestock including goats and water buffalo along with resource training to more than 79 million people in more than 125 countries.
• Little Rock is the birthplace of the original “cheese dog,” a wiener filled with cheese in the middle which locals either love or hate. It was invented in 1956 at the Finkbeiner Meat Packing Co.
• E. Lynn Harris is considered the all-time best selling African American novelist in the country and is also proud to be from Little Rock.
• Who doesn’t love a good Globetrotter? Hubert “Geese” Ausbie, one of the most famous Globetrotters of all, was born right here in Little Rock on April 25, 1938. Ausbie definitely knew how to make a scene, and not just with a ball, either!
• The Old Mill was filmed for the iconic opening scene of the 1939 classic film “Gone With The Wind” and is thought to be the only structure still standing from production.
• Josh Lucas might have convinced the world he was living sweet at home in Alabama in the movie with Reese Witherspoon, but he’s actually a Little Rock native.
• There is only one accredited zoo in the entire state of Arkansas and Little Rock has it.
• The Little Rock Nine were nine African American students who were given a military escort into Little Rock Central High School after the 1954 Brown vs. Board Of Education ruling deemed segregated schools unconstitutional.
• Little Rock also has the only civil rights memorial located on state capitol grounds in the south. “Testament” is a memorial to the Little Rock Nine.
• Each one of the Little Rock Nine students went on to have successful careers in fields such as journalism, psychology, accounting, and social work.
• In 1999, President Bill Clinton presented each person from the Little Rock Nine with the Congressional Medal of Honor.
• On October 14, 1990, the world’s largest soda float was created in Little Rock at the Arkansas State Fairgrounds. Ingredients included 1,200 pounds of Coleman Quality Checked Dairy’s skim milk and 936 gallons of Coca-Cola.
• Willow Springs Water Park was built in 1928 as one of the first U.S. water theme parks.
• The “Designing Women” film production team used Little Rock’s Villa Marre residence at 1321 Scott Street for the scenes of the front of the house in the opening credits of each episode of the show.
• The Old State House Museum in Little Rock was made from hand-laid brick in 1836 while it served as the state capitol for 75 years. It’s the oldest surviving state Capitol building west of the Mississippi River.
• Little Rock is proud to be home to both the Arkansas School for the Blind and the Arkansas School for the Deaf.
• With 1,575 acres of land, Burns Park located in North Little Rock, is one of the largest municipal parks in the country.
• Brooks Robinson, third-baseman for the Orioles turned Hall-of-Famer, called Little Rock home.
• The Stevie Wonder song “I Was Made To Love Her” pays homage to Little Rock in the opening line that says, “I was born in Li’l Rock…” Wonder, however, was not born in Little Rock.
• The famous Grand Funk Railroad song “We’re An American Band” also mentioned Little Rock in the line, “Out on the road for forty days, Last night in Little Rock put me in a haze.”
• The department store Dillard’s is headquartered in Little Rock and is one of the most successful store chains in the country.
• Although Dillard’s is headquartered in Little Rock, founder William Dillard’s first store was opened in Nashville, Arkansas in 1938.
• Maybe she’s born with it? Maybe it’s Maybelline, headquartered in North Little Rock. The makeup company is the world’s leader of mass-produced cosmetics.
• If you’re addicted to Sharper Image products, you can thank founder and CEO Richard Thalheimer. He is a graduate of Hall High School in Little Rock.
• Little Rock Central High School was named The Most Beautiful High School In America by the American Institute of Architects.
• The William J. Clinton Presidential Center houses one of the largest archival collections in American presidential history, with 76.8 million pages of paper documents, nearly 2 million photographs, over 84,600 museum artifacts and 21 million e-mail messages from the Clinton presidency.
• The museum inside the library in the Clinton Presidential Center includes a full scale replica of the Oval Office the way it was during the Clinton administration.
• A few months after his famous trip across the Atlantic Ocean in the Spirit of St. Louis, Charles Lindberg dropped in on Little Rock in 1927.
• The Arkansas Travelers are the professional AA minor league baseball affiliate in Arkansas and have one of the longest running histories of any minor league franchise. The team played their last game in Little Rock at Ray Winder Field in 2006 and began playing in North Little Rock in 2007.
• National Football League referee, operator of Coleman Diary, and Little Rock native, Walt Coleman refereed for the infamous 2002 playoff game (known as the “Tuck Rule” game) between the Oakland Raiders and the New England Patriots in which the refs were highly criticized for the controversial game-changing call that caused the Raiders to lose.
• The USS Razorbacks rests at the Arkansas Inland Maritime Museum as the longest-serving World War II submarine in the world.
• Little Rock began selling a soft drink called Niagara in 2001. What was different about this soft drink was that it was said to be an aphrodisiac, which raised quite a few eyebrows and a lot of media attention, causing it to fly off the shelves.
• The Matrix-like enigma of the Cicada 3301 encryption puzzles still remains a complete mystery to most people. But it hit the radar of Little Rock residents when one of the encryption puzzle posters was discovered in downtown Little Rock.
• Little Rock is also home to the American Taekwondo Association and hosts the ATA World Taekwondo Championships every summer.
• Reba McEntire saw a number one hit on the country charts in 1986 for her song, “Little Rock.”
• Little Rock’s name comes from an actual little rock. The small rock formation was used by travelers on the Arkansas River as a landmark known as la Petite Roche, French for “the little rock.” It became a known point and the name stuck.
• Adolphine Fletcher Terry was born in raised in Little Rock before she went on to become a leading activist for women’s rights across the state. She also graduated from Vassar College with honors and went on to organize the state’s first PTA.
• Singer Amy Lee of the band Evanescence got her start in Little Rock.
• Climber Car was a small automobile manufacturer in Little Rock, which only built about 200 cars and 100 pickup trucks in the 1920s. There are only two of these cars left today.

Reference Sources: Movoto Real Estate

Little Rock ASL & CART Language Interpreters

American Language Services is known for our high-quality, In-person and Virtual interpreters, as well as the outstanding client services we provide. We work in 200+ languages including Legal and Medical Certified and Qualified.  ASL and CART are the fastest growing languages in Little Rock today a language interpreter can be a very underestimated professional in the world today. There are over 100 languages spoken in the Little Rock Metro area alone. Many of us know one language, and we specialize in one field of study. Our Little Rock Interpreters are fluent in English and at least one other language, and they are knowledgeable in a wide range of specialized fields including legal, medical, technical, manufacturing, and engineering.

A brief history of ASL Interpreting in Little Rock

Most people know that ASL stands for American Sign Language. But not everyone knows that it is a distinct language—not simply an offshoot of American English. Though its beginnings are murky, many believe that ASL originated from a merger of French Sign Language (SLF) and local U.S. sign languages. While ASL and SLF are distinct languages, there are still some similarities between their signs.

What actually is ASL?   ASL a complete, natural language that has the same linguistic properties as spoken languages with grammar however that differs from English. ASL is expressed by movements of the hands and face.  ASL is a language completely separate and distinct from English. It contains all the fundamental features of language, with its own rules for pronunciation, word formation, and word order.  Because of the physical nature of ASL, a two-person team of ASL interpreters is required for assignments longer than 1 hour in duration.

The National Center for Health Statistics claims that 28 million Americans have some degree of hearing loss, though only between two and eight percent of them are natural ASL speakers.  Helping these select individuals translate the audible into the understandable is the job of an ASL interpreter.  If you have ever been to a play, a concert or watched a government briefing, you have probably seen an ASL interpreter signing just out of view.  An interesting side note is that Statista estimates that there are currently around 60,000 active ASL interpreters in the USA.

The Benefits of ASL Interpreting in Little Rock

When it comes to communicating with hard-of-hearing or deaf audiences, there are a few reasons you might want to opt for a Little Rock ASL interpreter over CART services. These include:

• A More Personal Connection: A real person has several advantages over a computer screen. First, human interpreters have an easier time conveying emotion. Second, they are better equipped to point out speakers and assist with pronunciation issues. Finally, an interpreter gives a deaf or hard of hearing person a chance to bond with another person.
• Enhanced Speed: Skilled interpreters can hold pace with even the fastest speakers. Lack of delay makes it easier for deaf and hard of hearing individuals to keep up with the conversation.
• Cost Effective:  While costs range by the type of ASL you need (Legal, medical, business, etc.) and when the assignment is scheduled, the cost off ASL, across the board, is less money than CART.

What Is CART?

While the majority of people know what American Sign Language is, the same cannot be said for Communication Access Real-Time Translation. Often referred to as CART, this communication method for the deaf and hard of hearing is best described as subtitling for live discussions. Unlike ASL, which relies on a professional interpreter, CART services are provided by a well-trained stenographer or transcriptionist. They transcribe anything said and then broadcast the resulting text to a phone, computer, or TV screen.

CART is often seen as a cost-effective and efficient way to ensure everybody can follow along. While often used to help deaf students in the classroom, CART captioning benefits anyone that can read.  Much like ASL interpreting, it can be done both onsite with a physical transcriptionist or remotely with an offsite one.

Why You Should Consider CART for the Little Rock Market

Communication Access Real-Time Translation is growing in popularity due to the following characteristics:

• It Serves a Wider Array of Deaf People: If you do a little math, you will realize that 65 percent of hard-of-hearing people in the USA do not speak ASL fluently. CART makes it so these people can join in on the conversation as well.
• CART Makes It Scalable: While people in the front rows can easily make out what an interpreter is signing, it gets harder as the distance increases. Since captions can be beamed to multiple screens simultaneously, they do not have to factor speaker distance into the equation.
• The Text Provides a Written Record: Having a transcript of everything your professor said would be a godsend come finals. Having a record of a meeting can also provide clarity to all those involved as well. The physical nature of CART recording makes that possible. This ability is one reason so many college students opt for CART over traditional ASL interpreting. 

About American Language Services

Founded in 1985, American Language Services was there to help pioneer the rise in remote ASL interpreting options. Our dedication to quality and client satisfaction in interpreting allowed us to shift from a one-woman agency into one of the most successful language agencies in the world. Our language experts provide ASL & CART interpreting services to people all around the world. Because of our 24/7 availability, you’ll never have to worry about us not being available, on off times, for an assignment.

AML-Global has some of the most impressive linguistic talents in the world. These highly skilled language professionals are recruited, screened, and tested to ensure high-quality work.

Contact us by email at interpreting@alsglobal.net or via phone at 1-800-951-5020 for a free estimate on our ASL and CART services.