Casterline was born Dorothy Sueoka on April 27, 1928,[1][2] to parents of Japanese descent, and she grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii.
[4][3][11] Published in 1965, the dictionary is considered a seminal text in the study of ASL, which promoted greater interest in and respect for the language.
[5][13] Casterline played an important role as a deaf collaborator with the hearing professor Stokoe over the several years it took to produce the dictionary.
[5] Stokoe also valued the multicultural makeup of his team, with Casterline's Asian Pacific Islander background and Croneberg's Swedish one.
[14] As part of this project, she collaborated with Stokoe and Croneberg beginning in 1960 on a study of the syntax and dialects of American Sign Language under funding provided by the National Science Foundation.