A House of Quality (HOQ) matrix of assistive technology for deaf students at elementary school to enhance basic-level language competencies

Abstract

Communication skill is a human basic ability to interact with one another. People usually have no difficulties in communication, yet not for deaf people. The basic communication ability of deaf people tends to be poor due to their hearing impairment. Thus, the technological role is an effective way to enhance communication skill for deaf people or so-called as assistive technology. This study generated a house of quality (HOQ) matrix which can be adopted to develop an assistive technology in the form of language instructional media. The HOQ matrix generated significantly contributes to translating from profound need analysis to assistive technology features to enhance communication ability through Indonesian language competencies for deaf students at elementary school. The user needs were formulized from a preliminary assessment at previous research which took twelve best deaf students from three special elementary schools in Special Region of Yogyakarta, Indonesia. This study has found that the priority of assistive technology development is visual and interactive media, either application or educational game, which comprises the vocabulary of concrete thematic nouns and non-affix transitive verbs and composing a simple sentence. Therefore, the HOQ generated is particularly noteworthy for Indonesian language major competencies by deaf students, which are: understanding reading text skill, writing, and speaking.