Hearing Assistive Technology: Sign Language Translation Application for Hearing-Impaired Communication

Abstract

Sign Language (SL) is the most important communication way between hearing-impaired community and normal persons. However, it is very common that the normal person does not know the SL. Thus, for assisting the hearing-impaired community to communicate in a world of spoken languages, there is a need to develop a translation tool to assist the communication between hearing-impaired community and normal persons. One of the translation tools available nowadays is Hearing Assistive Technology (HAT). HAT can dramatically improve the communication with hearing problem and increase the sustainability of social interaction in community. This paper presents an approach of HAT in the development of the sign language translation application for hearing-impaired communication by translating the SL gesture into a textual and audio form. This application integrates with a Microsoft Kinect Camera Sensor to detect the gesture of SL that is performed by the user who stands in front of the device. The SL translation application implements Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) algorithm. It measures the similarity between two sequences, which was the recorded gesture stored in text file and the current gesture performed by the user. This paper evaluates the application using a user acceptance test based on Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) that involved thirty (30) respondents to determine the effectiveness of the system. The evaluation shows that most of the participants positively accepted the proposed application. Therefore, this application provides insight on the role of HAT which has prepared opportunities for the hearing-impaired and normal person to compensate and empower the communication by using an automatic SL translation application.