Deaf Pupils Research Articles

Chaining Strategy and Word Recognition Development among Deaf Pupils in Tanzania

Despite chaining strategy being used in teaching deaf pupils in Tanzania, still deaf graduate with poor reading skills. Thus, there was the need of finding out the reasons for this stressing situation in the country. Basing on the theory of simple view of reading which highlights that reading comprehension is determined by word recognition ability and language comprehension ability, this study explored the contribution of chaining strategy in developing word recognition ability among deaf pupils in selected special primary schools in Tanzania. The study employed mixed research approach with a convergent research design, whereby, in-depth interview, observation, questionnaire and test were employed to collect data from teachers and deaf pupils respectively. A sample of 182 respondents that included 20 teachers and 162 deaf pupils was used. Data obtained were analysed through descriptive, simple linear regression and content analysis. The study revealed that the use of chaining strategy has significant contribution in developing word recognition ability among deaf pupils in Tanzania. This is because the strategy contributed much in building up major word recognition sub-skills among deaf such as, fingerspelling ability, ability to select specific word from the group of written words, abilities to match words with their corresponding signs, and ability to identify misspelled words. In-turn the subskills contributed to word recognition ability among deaf pupils. The study recommends the government to strengthen on in-service training among teachers for deaf as it will keep teachers updated as far as sign language is concern and on how to effectively apply chaining strategy

Implementation of Sibi Sign Language Realtime Detection Program (Case Studi At Sekolah Luar Biasa Negeri 1 Tabanan)

Indonesian deaf people utilize SIBI to communicate using spoken words, gestures, facial expressions, and body language. SIBI, certified for Special Schools (SLB), helps deaf pupils communicate. This project implements SIBI (Indonesian Sign Language System) a real-time detection algorithm at Sekolah Luar Biasa Negeri 1 Tabanan using image processing and YoloV8 ultralytics deep learning. The program trains a sign language gesture detection model on Google Colab's GPU. The SIBI sign language images were used to train a YoloV8 object detection model. The camera captures movements, which the YoloV8 algorithm trained on SIBI gesture data processes. It can recognize gestures in real time and generate text to non-sign language users. The dataset has 107 class vocabulary and 7 class affix prefixes for complete gesture recognition. Shirt color, room brightness, and webcam quality affect detection rates. Optimal detection accuracy is 87.74% and subpar 58.02%. Despite these limitations, the strategy helps deaf students communicate more effectively with non-sign language speakers. This program improves inclusivity and communication in schools, making learning easier for hearing-impaired pupils. This work provides a reliable and quick sign language identification system to help deaf educators and caregivers with daily interactions and education.

Chaining Strategy and Language Comprehension Development among Deaf Pupils in Tanzania

Comprehension among deaf pupils in Tanzania has been a persisting problem for decades. Interesting enough, deaf pupils in the country have been attending primary education for ten years whereby chaining strategy has been a common strategy for teaching them reading skills. Despite the use of chaining strategy which is being promoted by different scholars in the world as a strongest strategy in promoting reading skill, still, deaf graduate with poor reading ability. Thus, the current study intended to find out the usefulness of chaining strategy in developing language comprehension among deaf pupils in Tanzania. The study was conducted in four special primary schools for deaf from Dare es Salaam, Njombe, Kagera and Tabora and was guided by the theory of simple view of reading and (VARK) model. It employed mixed research approach with a convergent research design. In-depth interview and a five Likert scale questionnaire were used to collect data from 20 teachers, while test as well as observation were employed in collecting data from 162 deaf pupils. Data were analyzed through descriptive, simple linear regression and content analysis. It was revealed that chaining strategy had significant contribution in developing deaf pupils’ ability of generating meaning from individual words (p = .000) and short sentences (p = .002). On the other side, chaining strategy had insignificant influence in developing deaf pupils’ ability of generating meaning from long sentences (p = .672) and reading texts without challenges (p = .089). The conclusion drawn from the findings was that, chaining strategy does not guarantee the development of language comprehension among deaf pupils, unless extra innovations are done. It was recommended that, deaf need to be identified and exposed to sign language in early ages, also early grade teachers need to be competent in sign language.

La Lingua dei Segni Italiana (LIS) nella scuola: la prospettiva bilingue ed embodied come risorsa inclusiva per alunni sordi e udenti a partire dai contesti educativi zero-sei

Presence of deaf pupils in school, starting from nursery and kindergarten, constitutes a great opportunity to reflect on the inclusion processes and to conceive and experiment pedagogical and methodological-didactic innovations that are enriching for all children, as it involves different interrelated areas, first of all the linguistic-communicative one, essential for cognitive, emotional and relational development, and central to the teaching-learning processes. It also sheds new light on the specifics of human communication, deepening the role of body and space in the intersubjective relationship, adopting a multimodal and embodied perspective. Therefore it promotes, in parallel, new ways of mediation and conducting activities by educators and teachers , not only in pre-school contexts, but also in every eduacational level. In the article I will therefore try to show why, as far as deaf children are concerned, the pedagogical perspective cannot be separated from developmental psychology, psycholinguistics, neurosciences and the historical-cultural perspective. I will then deepen the possible methodological choices if a bilingual perspective is adopted and the achievable objectives for both deaf and hearing children.

Math education and the human right to inclusion: the expectations of the teacher acting with deaf pupils in a public school in the Distrito Federal

This study presents math teachers and their expectations regarding the school inclusion process, as a human right, for deaf students. It presents mathematical education as knowledge that dialogs with the perspectives of human rights, in particular, with the right to education. It has as participants in the research six mathematics teachers who work in a public high school, located in the Gama Administrative Region, Federal District, Brazil. The qualitative methodology was used with a dialogical instrument of semi-structured interview and discourse analysis. As a result, it was found that many teachers have propositive expectations regarding the inclusion of the deaf learner, although much of the emphasis is on the acquisition of Brazilian Sign Language rather than methodologies and teaching processes suitable for this audience. As for their training to promote inclusion, there was a negative expectation, since four of the teachers said that they were not prepared. However, all have demonstrated in their narratives the importance of teaching mathematics and inclusion as a right to education, as well as a human right for all.

Editorial

Editorial

‘It’s not fantasy storybooks’: The funds of identity approach in creating storybooks for deaf pupils

As a Special Education Teacher, the lack of language learning materials for deaf pupils is a challenge. Storybooks are a crucial resource for helping pupils understand the world and connect it to their real-life experiences. The ‘funds of identity’ approach has been used across a range of research studies to create storybooks for deaf pupils. To further probe its potential, an action research study involving a ‘self-reflection’ cycle process was conducted in a primary school in Sabah, Malaysia involving eight deaf students. The qualitative and narrative findings of the study indicate that storybooks based on the funds of identity have increased pupils’ interest in reading and helped them connect the story with their reality. In short, these books are important in improving the reading skills of deaf pupils. Abstrak Sebagai Guru Pendidikan Khas, kekurangan bahan pembelajaran bahasa untuk murid-murid pekak masih menjadi cabaran. Buku cerita adalah penting untuk membantu murid memahami dunia dan mengaitkannya dengan pengalaman hidup sebenar. Maka, pendekatan ‘identiti dana’ telah diadaptasikan dalam membina buku cerita yang bersesuaian dengan keperluan murid pekak. Kajian Tindakan menggunakan proses kitaran ‘refleksi-kendiri’ telah dijalankan di sebuah sekolah rendah di Sabah, Malaysia melibatkan lapan orang murid pekak. Dapatan kajian kualitatif dan naratif menunjukkan bahawa buku cerita berasaskan identiti dana telah meningkatkan minat murid dalam membaca, membantu murid membuat perkaitan dengan cerita sekali gus menambah baik penguasaan kemahiran membaca mereka.

Bimodal-Bilingual Teacher Training in Sweden

Abstract: In 1981, Sweden was the first country in the world to entitle deaf pupils to a bimodal-bilingual education. However, drawing from interviews with key past Stockholm teacher trainers and on our own efforts to update teacher training, we note that sign-bilingual teacher training in Sweden has been ad hoc to this day. The interviewees' accounts highlight that deaf education is essentially about language access, that sign-bilingualism is core to the educational inclusion of all deaf pupils, and that only audism stands in the way of this. We argue against the Swedish national policy presumption of special need, pointing out that deaf pupils have an inalienable entitlement to sign language in much the same way that the right to speak Swedish is an inalienable part of being Swedish and not a need that only some Swedish people have. This makes national recognition of sign language a necessary precondition to deaf pupils' full educational inclusion. Policy should then likewise guarantee the sign-bilingual competence of teachers seeking to work with deaf pupils, this being a matter that necessarily conjoins educational and language (minority) rights as the two flipsides of one single coin.

English

Sign language is a need for deaf pupils to communicate with one another. People who are not deaf often do not learn sign language to interact with deaf people. It is also necessary to have an interpreter to explain the sign's meaning to others who are unfamiliar with it. Several unresolved issues, such as uncontrolled signing situations, various types of light, and varying degrees of partial occlusion, have adversely impacted hand gesture recognition efficacy. The suggested technique is unusual because it employs integrated features created by combining features obtained using conventional handcrafted feature extraction methods with deep learning models. Understandably the combined characteristics will include some repetitive and unnecessary characteristics, increasing computation time and wasting resources. We prevent this by using feature selection (FS) before providing the classifier with the merged features. We present the improved version of the newly developed Battle Royale Optimisation, IBROA, for feature selection. The characteristics are fed into a classifier for classification. Experiments were carried out, and the findings show that the proposed IBROA, which utilises integrated features and feature selection, outperforms classifiers and shows novel and efficient techniques for feature selection in Sign language classification.

Identification of Mathematics Learning Media Needs for Junior High School Students with Hearing Impairment

Students with disabilities face a wide range of obstacles to their academic and personal growth. Because of this, they require educational services tailored to the specific requirements of each student. Even with these disadvantages, deaf pupils must study mathematics. Therefore, there is a need for mathematical learning materials that take into account the specific characteristics and requirements of deaf children. This investigation is a case study of qualitative research. Deaf pupils are the focus of this study. Observation, questionnaires, and in-person interviews were employed to compile the data. In this study, we employ a validity technique known as "source triangulation." The research found that because deaf children rely so heavily on visual cues for knowledge acquisition, tactile learning materials are essential for them to succeed in mathematics. Knowledge can also be more effectively transmitted through the use of learning material that encourages dialogue between instructors and students.

Historical Perspectives of Disability and Special Education in Zambia

Formal education for the disabled children and people particularly the blind and the deaf children and adults originated during the colonial period when experts in communication skills for this category of people arrived from Europe. Like formal education for the able bodied pupils, education for the disabled or differently abled pupils and students is associated with the early missionaries in the colonial period. The missionaries in particular brought special education for the blind and deaf pupils. In Zambia, the first school for children with special education needs was at Magwero community in 1903 in eastern province by missionaries with a very small number of three pupils (two from Malawi and one from Zambia). Parents of children with disabilities such as deafness and blindness did not see the need to educate these children who in most cases faced discrimination within their families and community at large. The advent of missionaries who came from countries where education was for all children with learning abilities was the beginning of education for children with hearing and sight disabilities. This education was not located in all provinces in the country and this meant that parents who wanted to send children to school had to send them to these few schools. Consequently, a lot of disabled children could not access education. Currently, there are so many schools for children with disabilities in different parts of the country run by government and other institutions such as the church and NGOs. With international conventions made on the rights of the child, the government has made great strides in providing education for all children regardless of any challenges they may be facing. However, accessing secondary and tertiary education remains a serious challenge for many due to the fact that the infrastructure is not sensitive to the needs of such challenged students. In other words, there are few students at tertiary level with disabilities because of issues to do with cost of education, discrimination against disabled children at family level and the nature of infrastructure where one has to be aided to classes and other facilities. A lot of policies and legislation has been done but what is still lacking is full implementation in terms of provision of facilities and services right in institutions to fully meet the needs of pupils and students with disabilities in all the different parts of the country.

Loss of support for deaf children

Report reveals shortage of teachers for deaf pupils due to funding cuts is harming children's education

Problematizing translanguaging as an inclusive pedagogical strategy in deaf education

ABSTRACT This paper critically analyses the meaning and use of translanguaging as an inclusive pedagogical strategy in the context of a bilingual deaf education classroom where there are asymmetrical sensorial experiences of being deaf and being hearing, and different access to ‘codified’ (either speech or sign-language) resources. The pedagogical opportunities and constraints of translanguaging are examined through an analysis of the meaning-making resources among deaf and hearing interlocutors in face-to-face interaction. Using two short excerpts from an English class with two deaf pupils, a hearing teacher of the deaf and hearing communication support worker the authors analyse ways in which the modes of image, sound and speech, gesture and signing, gaze, body posture are coordinated in the spatial context for meaning-making. A multimodal and layered analysis of two short turn sequences describes ways in which modes are integrated and coordinated in the spatial layout of the classroom in ways that either facilitate or inhibit inclusive communication. Strategies for the analysis and deployment of multimodal resources that may facilitate the inclusive potential of translanguaging in this interactional context are discussed.

Impact of Aerobics programme on some Blood Components of deaf and dumb pupils at the age from 12: 15

Impact of Aerobics programme on some Blood Components of deaf and dumb pupils at the age from 12: 15

The deaf’s e-learning challenges during COVID-19: Moroccan case study

Aim: With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing lockdown, some incidentally urgent actions and measures have been imposed on the educational and social levels. All schools ceased in-person classes and switched to remote learning. The pandemic has also brought about health and protection decisions, exerting critical impacts on people’s lives, mainly those with special needs. Association Marocaine pour Enfants Sourds (AMES) did not change and enhance innovative methods to accommodate effective remote instructions. This paper investigates the e-learning experience of Moroccan deaf pupils during the lockdown era.Methodology: First, we analyze and discuss the challenges and communication barriers facing Moroccan deaf pupils. After that, we investigate why AMES slammed the doors in the deaf pupils’ faces and left them excluded on the contrary of most deaf schools all over the globe. We adopted a mixed-methods approach, qualitative and quantitative, by conducting a survey and a thematic analysis of data.Findings: This study revealed problems related to education challenges, communication barriers, digital illiteracy, and e-learning absenteeism, among other points. Then some recommendations are suggested.Implications/Novel Contribution: This study is the one to examine the difficulties that deaf students in Morocco experienced when shifting to online schooling during the pandemic. Compared to other nations, e-learning is in its birth in Morocco, and its application has greatly been intensified by COVID-19.

Methodological Aspects of Health Formation for the Practice of Adaptive Physical Education in School-Children Taking into Account the Endoecological Factors

Purpose of the research to define and characterize the projection theory of scientific knowledge prerequisites on the concept of health-forming technologies development in the process of adaptive physical education for school-age children with hearing impairment. The study involved 236 pupils. Depending on age, gender and degree of hearing impairment, pupils were divided into 8 groups. Studied physical development, physical work capability, physical preparedness, morbidity, level of health and peculiarities of children with hearing impairments attitude`s to their own health for substantiation of methodical provisions to concept of health formation for children with hearing impairments. According to the Kettle index, none of the groups of surveyed pupils met the norm. Data showed that almost 60.00% of children were below the average for the vital index, and 40.00% are at the low level. In the morbid- ity structure of hard-hearing and deaf pupils, regardless of age and gender, the first place was occupied by infectious and parasitic diseases (86.97%), followed by diseases of the nervous system (76.54%) and musculoskeletal system (81.78%). Children with hearing impairments had below average of recovery rate of the cardiovascular system after a standard exercise (57.80%). Only 15.70% of boys and 28.40% of girls considered themselves as practically healthy. All data determine the urgent need for focusing attention on the children with hearing impairments health.

The Spectre of Abnormality: Deaf Education and the Poetics of Contestation at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

Abstract When, during the Revolution, the French government committed to supporting the education of Deaf people, they left it to teachers to determine the methods and contents of this education. Less than a century later, the Ministry of the Interior of the third Republic reformed the teaching in use in most institutions in the direction of methods of pure speech. This moment coincided with the development of new categories to classify children in relation to the educational project, especially ‘backward’ and ‘abnormal’ at the turn of the twentieth-century. While Deaf writers did not oppose the teaching of speech, they soon questioned the legitimacy of this reform, and exposed the threats it posed for the development of Deaf pupils. In addition to examining the stakes and the impacts of the political decision, this paper will analyze the development of a poetics of contestation throughout Deaf writing, as manifested in the adoption of a variety of rhetorical strategies, ranging from irony to critical analysis, in the rewriting of the category of abnormality. This article will show how these years of struggle were also years of emancipation, insofar as the acquisition of language became a poetical and political act.

Language attitudes towards Serbian Sign Language and experiences with deaf education in Serbia

In this paper, we report on data obtained from interviews with 28 deaf signers and three hearing teachers of deaf pupils regarding their experiences with and attitudes towards deaf education and Serbian Sign Language (SZJ). Following transcription of the data, we conducted thematic analyses of the deaf informants’ and teachers’ comments. Data, which indicate that a change in language attitudes among deaf people has taken place compared to the oralist ideology still prevalent among teachers, are considered within a broader historical context by giving the first account of SZJ, its place in education and its history. In the light of the results, we highlight the importance of teacher training for promoting a cultural-linguistic minority perspective in deaf education in Serbia that would allow for deafness to be viewed as human diversity rather than disability.

Sexual and reproductive health services utilisation amongst in-school young people with disabilities in Ghana.

BackgroundSexual and reproductive health (SRH) of young people including those with disabilities is a major public health concern globally. However, available evidence on their use of sexual and reproductive health services (SRHS) is inconsistent.ObjectiveThis study investigated utilisation of SRHS amongst the in-school young people with disabilities (YPWDs) in Ghana using the healthcare utilisation model.MethodsGuided by the cross-sectional study design, a questionnaire was used to obtain data from 2114 blind and deaf pupils or students in the age group 10-24 years, sampled from 15 purposively selected special schools for the deaf and the blind in Ghana.ResultsAbout seven out of every 10 respondents had ever utilised SRHS. The proportion was higher amongst the males (67.8%) compared with the females (62.8%). Young persons with disabilities in the coastal (OR = 0.03, 95% CI = 0.01–0.22) and middle (OR = 0.06, 95% CI = 0.01–0.44) zones were less likely to have ever utilised SRHS compared with those in the northern ecological zone. The blind pupils or students were more likely to have ever utilised SRHS than the deaf (OR = 1.45, 95% CI = 1.26–3.11).ConclusionsGenerally, SRHS utilisation amongst the in-school YPWDs in Ghana is high but significantly associated with some predisposing, need and enabling or disabling factors. This underscores the need for policymakers to consider in-school YPWDs as a heterogeneous group in the design and implementation of SRHS programmes. The Ghana Education Service in collaboration with the Ghana Health Service should adopt appropriate pragmatic measures and targeted interventions in the special schools to address the SRH needs of the pupils or students.

Diversidad funcional auditiva en el aula de educación física

Este artículo se centra en la formación de docentes de educación física en alumnado con diversidad funcional auditiva. El objetivo es analizar en los docentes la necesidad de conocer la discapacidad auditiva y sus necesidades. Se han seleccionado dos muestras: personas con diversidad funcional auditiva de Jaén (277) y alumnado del Grado de Educación Primaria (282), realizando una investigación descriptiva, explicativa y correlacional con una metodología cuantitativa. Se construyó una escala Likert, que se compone de cuatro dimensiones. Se realizó la Rho de Spearman y la U de Mann-Whitney. Los resultados muestran que las personas con diversidad funcional auditiva están adaptadas, pero precisan de la figura de un intérprete. Se incita a una mayor capacitación en la formación docente para la educación de personas con diversidad funcional auditiva con el fin principal de conseguir una educación inclusiva.