Photo impression Dovencultuurweek

The theme of this year's Dovencultuurweek was "Time machine". Today a cowboy and two indians came out in stead.

Outdoor games: kids of all ages (4 - 18) played together.

The teenagers helped out a lot with the small children (they had their own activity in the afternoon). Here a dry spaghetti had to be carried to the other side.

Games were explained in sign language. Placing both hands beside your head means: Paying Attention. Everybody copies the sign to spread the word to pay attention.

Lunch. These kids were very assertive and assumed that, since we were adults, we would act the same as the camp leaders. So we served lots of fries, sausages and tomatoes!

Pimp your hearing aid!

Quick notes from Dovencultuurweek

Today, we visited the Dovencultuurweek, a summer camp for deaf children at the school. We will post pictures and more details about our impressions later on, but here are a few quick take-aways already:

• Flemish Sign Language is more similar to French Sign Language as it is to Dutch Sign Language
• Deaf people try to attract someone else's attention a lot, by waving (sometimes right in front of your face), grabbing your arm, tapping your arm or sholder, etc.
• It is really easy to talk to deaf kids with CI's, they can hear and talk much much better than you'd expect
• Appropriate physical interaction is an important issue for deaf people and can cause quite some problems

Onici

In my first contribution to the blog I'd like to direct your attention to Onici, an indepedent expert organization on Cochlear Implants (CI). Although the somewhat outdated website may give you the impression that clear communication is not organizations first concern, it does contain some interesting information on the current state of research on CI.

After a first glance at the presentation Onici gave at the beginning of 2009, Onici is clearly (and obviously) enthusiastic about the possibilities CIs offer to hearing impaired people. However, Onici does not shy away to also underline the limitations of the implants.

From what we have learned from the first interviews we have conducted, it seems that the presence of this kind of organization is very much needed. There is a high need for neutral information on CI, as many parents with hearing impaired children have unrealistic expectations towards CI. While the technology is continuously being modified and improved, many children still have difficulties understanding other people in groups. Cognitive issues that are typical for hearing impaired children also arise: difficulties with language comprehension and abstract thinking.

Some years ago, Belgium has introduced newborn screening hearing tests, and as a result CIs get implemented earlier, but it is unclear how this will affect the personal development of deaf people in the long run. Currently, children with CIs still have hearing difficulties in group, and those integrated in mainstream education often feel different from their peers and experience troubles with social integration. These are issues that remain important and that have to be dealt with in specific ways.

CI is also controversial as it is perceived as treathening by some people in the deaf community: they fear that CIs will make deaf and hard-of-hearing school focus solely on oral speach, ignoring sign language and thus can making deaf culture disappear.

To what extent sign language should (still) be teached is a very sensitive issue. Often parents are very reluctant to let their children learn sign language: they want their children to be as normal as possible and they are afraid that sign language will alienate their child from the world and his or her parents. On the other hand, deaf organizations and certain psychologists insist on making sign language a part of the curriculum of deaf and hard-of-hearing children. The decision to whether or not teach sign language is not only controversial, but also important as it determines the future cognitive development, mental well-being and identity of the deaf or hard-of-hearing child.

The decision making here is further clouded by audiologists telling the parents of the children that "the CI will make their child normal again" and CI companies (like Cochlear) ignoring the steps that follow CI implementation.

To avoid further confusion and to be able to make decisions irrespective of all kinds of possibly unrealistic expectations surrounding CIs, an organizations like Onici is important. Therefore, we hope to be able to add their voice to the research data.

Pieter

Flemish sign language dictionary

I just found another cool website, where you can find all Flemish sign language signs for letters, numbers, but also for a lot of words (click "NL naar VGT"):

http://gebaren.ugent.be/zoeken.php

This video is an example I downloaded from the website: "computer" in Flemish sign language (VGT - Vlaamse GebarenTaal):

Nethnography

Just a quick post to share some ideas I've been thinking about to extend our research. We are currently doing a literature review (suggestions are welcome!) to find out what has been done already in the area of user-centered design, codesign, creative and generative methods, etc. with deaf children. In one of the articles I found some interesting links to websites that might help us to further understand the deaf community:

• a website for deaf gamers
• Facebook group "Deaf"
• Facebook group "Deaf Power" (remember that Mascha mentioned this?)
  
• Facebook group "Deaf all around the world"

Please have a look at these websites and let us know what you think!

Interview with the head of the school's living communities

The boarding school - living communities
Our final interview was with the head of the school's living communities, consisting of deaf and hard-of-hearing kids who live at the school from Monday to Friday. Some children are only at the school during the day. The head explains that for many parents, raising a deaf child is not so easy. They are suddenly confronted with the world of the deaf and do not 'speak' sign language. Also, many children prefer to live in the living community because they feel at home there. They feel that it's the only place where they are truly understood and they like to be with peers. According to the head, deaf children hardly have hearing friends. The different living communities represent different age groups: nursery school kids, 2,5 - 7 year olds, elementary school kids, and older kids.

Autonomy and identity
Themes that are important for the kids in the living communities are autonomy and identity. The head explains the importance of confronting deaf children with deaf adult role models by two cases that illustrates the unrealistic view of being deaf of these children. First, he tells that once a couple of elderly deaf ladies visited the school. A class of children saw these ladies 'speak' sign language in the hallway and asked the head "What have these ladies done that they are still deaf?". Another story is about a 16-year old girl. After the head returned from a trip to the UK, he told her that he had visited a club for deaf people there. The girl, asked unbelievingly: "But do they have deaf people there as well?". About autonomy, the ehad explains that this is a difficult issue for all boarding school children. Especially enjoying oneself in free time is hard for them. In the living communities of the school, children are encourages to find something to do themselves.

Relational development
Another important issue that the head raises is the disturbed relational development of deaf children. Many of the children show inappropriate behaviour related to forming relationships. For instance, many deaf children think it is normal to touch women's breasts. The problem is, says the head, that the children see lots of visual information about relationships (e.g. on tv, Internet, cinema, magazines), but they miss all or most auditory information accompanying the visual information. At the school they try to give the children a more realistic view on relationships, but the problem remains that they mostly have to rely on visual information.

Dovencultuurweek
Besides being the head of the boarding school groups, the head is also the main organiser of the "Dovencultuurweek". The boarding school children can also stay at the school during the holidays and about 7 or 8 years ago, the Dovencultuurweek was started to organise activities focused on deaf culture and sign language. During the Dovencultuurweek, all activities are run by deaf adults and everybody 'speaks' sign language. Every year, a theme is chosen for the week, with matching activities. Pieter and I will spend a day at the school during this week, on Wednesday August 17th. We will then be the only ones who don't speak sign language!

The school's House of the Future
Just before we're about to leave, the head briefly mentions that the school is doing a project called "House of the Future". When we ask for details, it appears that the school is building a house full of domotics. The idea of the concept of the House of the Future is to create a house that compensates for hearing impairments as much as possible. The kitchen will be the central part of the house, overlooking the living room. Between different living communities there will be a passageway which can both be open and closed. The head mentions the metaphor of "one big familiy with the option to separate the younger and older kids". In addition, he says that deaf kids think of their class mates as their family. the school is implementing all technological innovations in the house they can afford. Examples of such innovations are touch screens with high-speed connections for video phone calls (to use sign language a high speed of at least 30 frames / second is required), an induction loop system, vibrating mattresses (for central alarms and alarm clocks), and flash alarms. The house is also prepared for future domotics applications. According to plan, the house will be finished in January of 2010 and will from then function as a home for two groups of boarding school children and as a show case for ICT at home for deaf people.

Interview with the sign language teacher

Teaching sign language at the schoolThe sign language teacher used to be the speech therapist, but since a couple of years she is focusing on the use of sign language as a support for the normal themes of the lessons. Many deaf children have difficulties understanding the lessons because they find it difficult to understand spoken/written language. These children are guided by sign language teacher who discusses the themes of the lessons by using both spoken/written language and sign language. She is the only sign language teacher, so the time she can spend with each child is limited.

sign language teacher emphasizes the fact that she doesn't actively teach the children to use sign language. She also refers to the taboo on the use of sign language at schools that was the dominant view on education for deaf people for a long time. Only since a couple of years she is allowed to use sign language with the children, but she is not allowed to explicitly teach sign language.

Sign language and spoken/written languageThe sign language teacher explains that the structure of sign language is completely different from the structure of spoken/written language. Translating spoken/written language into sign language literally would make sign language way too slow. In addition, our visual memory has less capacity than our verbal memory, so it is harder to remember a long sentence in sign language than it is in spoken/written language. An example of a difference between sign language and spoken/written language is that in sign language elements from a sentence (mostly objects and subjects) are assigned a location in space. These locations are pointed at when referring to the original elements. This allows for a more speedy use of language and requires less visual memory than constantly repeating the names of the elements.

According to the sign language teacher, the most important reason for deaf children to learn sign language, is that you need to have a strongly developed native language in order to learn other languages later in life (including spoken/written language for deaf children). Children go through a critical period for language learning between the ages of 0 to 5/6 years. In this period, children are able to learn a native language, build their vocabulary, learn to use refined language, start to understand humor, etc. At later ages this is more difficult.

Problems with spoken/written languageEven though almost all deaf children have CI's nowadays, the need to learn sign language is still there. Because even with a CI, deaf children don't hear as much as we do, they miss a lot of auditory information. As a result, deaf children tend to think more black & white, with less nuances. Common language problems for deaf children include sentence constructions, wish expressions ("I wish I had brought my umbrella" includes the past tense (had), which is confusing because a wish is expressed) and the use of articles. Also, text comprehension is very difficult.

Identity and deaf cultureThe sign language teacher emphasizes the importance of the clubs for deaf people, especially for the children's sense of identity and their self confidence. She mentions that for deaf people it is not uncommon to show a lack of perseverance and to "play the victim". By stimulating deaf children to be proud and to fight for their rights, they become more assertive. The teacher gives an example of a girl of whom the teachers thought she was not too bright because she was very introvert and appeared to learn little. After participating in the lessons about deaf culture, this girl became much more assertive and asks for a translator if she needs one. She mentions the term Deaf Proud, which is used in English a lot by deaf communities. Also, the distinction between deaf and Deaf seems to be quite common (deaf refers to physical issues related to being deaf, Deaf refers to identity of deaf people).

Karin

Interview with the school's psychologist

In July 2nd we had three interviews at the school. One with the psychologist, whom we had met twice before, one with the sign language teacher, and one with the head of the boarding school department. I'll try to list the most remarkable issues raised by the interviewees, starting with the psychologist.

Taboo of using sign language at school
The psychologist's main job is to monitor the development of the elementary school children. An important topic for her is the use of sign language at school. Until a couple of years ago, using sign language was not allowed at the school (as it wasn't at many schools for deaf children). The general opinion in the field of deaf education was that learning sign language would interfere with learning spoken/written language. The idea behind this was that learning spoken/written language is much harder for deaf children, so it was feared that deaf children would choose to learn sign language only. The psychologist put a lot of effort in making sign language less of a taboo at the school. At the moment, she is quite satisfied with the situation. Sign language is not prohibited anymore and sign language is used during classes more often, next to spoken/written language.

Development
The psychologist tells us that most children at the school come in via the nursery school. Some children (mostly those with progressive forms of hearing impairments) start at the school when they are older. Each child is individually discussed every year by the whole team of the teacher, the psychologist, the speech therapist, etc. the psychologist informs the parents about the development of their children. A common worry amongst parents is the speech development of their children. the psychologist mentions that for the parents, being able to speak is a sign that their child is doing well. Usually the psychologist gives the parents some advice and some tips to playfully work with their children on their speech development at home. Such tips include giving positive feedback on articulation errors, reading books, replicating the visualisation methods used at school, etc.

Another problem that the psychologist raises is the fact that many parents are told that their child's hearing impairment is solved after they get a CI. Unfortunately, this is not true and the school has to disappoint many parents. Children have to learn to hear after getting implanted and have missed an important period in their auditory development (more on this in the interview with the sign language teacher).

Assistive technology & translator
The psychologist mentions assistive technologies used by the children at school. Besides the CI and the audio induction loop used in the class rooms, a few additional tools are used: a flash alarm on the play ground and in class, and vibration alarm clocks or flash alarm clocks. The psychologist also mentions the sign language translator as an aid for deaf children. Deaf people are entitled to hire a translator for school (5 hr. per week per child, at secondary school) and for private matters (e.g. doctor's visit, ceremonies, for 18 hr per year). However, to be able to understand a translator, you have to 'speak' sign language, another reason for the psychologist to emphasize the importance teaching sign language to deaf children.

Awareness of being deaf
The psychologist tells that the school tries to work on the children's awareness of being deaf. This is important, because the children grow up in a environment where being deaf and wearing a CI is normal. "It is very, very, very important to show the kids that there are deaf adults as well, and that their impairment will not go away when they grow older." A deaf role models sits in the classes regularly to work with the children. Unfortunately, there are very limited resources for this.

Deaf culture
Next to this awareness, the school tries to introduce the children to the so-called deaf culture. Children talk about their identity as a deaf person, sign language, growing up in a hearing or in a deaf family, hearing aids, clubs for deaf, culture, etc. the school aims to integrate the children as much as possible in both the hearing world and in the deaf world. The deaf see themselves as a cultural minority, not as a handicapped group. The deaf have their own culture, with their own rules. The psychologist compares it to Black Power: Deaf Power.

Karin

Press presentation of a book about a hearing-imparied girl

On June 23rd we went to the school again to attend the press presentation of the children's book ***. This book is written by **** and tells the story of a little girl with hearing impairments. The presentation was in one of the kindergarten classes of the school, where the publisher introduced the book and the author read the story to the class. After this, the children made a painting together with the illustrator of the book.

The press presentation was quite cute, to be honest. Six small children (about 4 years old) sat in a circle and listened to the author when she read the book. All children had a cochlear implant (which we will call CI from now on). I thought these implants (that have both an internal and an external component) were rather big and prominent, as you can see on the photo. What was very remarkable was that all of the children could speak very well and all of them seemed to hear quite well too. They were assertive and not shy at all, despite the fact that their class room was filled with unfamiliar people. After the presentation we had a chance to look around in the class room and at first sight, we did not really see anything out of the ordinary. Later on, the psychologist, showed us around and pointed out some of the visualising teaching methods. One of these methods involves writing down lots of words on the wall (these kids were only 4!) and drawing frames around each word, to emphasize the shape of the word. This apparently helps the children to recognize written words.

After the presentation there was a reception in the garden of the school. Here, we talked a bit more with the psychologist about the project and about deaf children, but we also spoke to three deaf adults, with the help of a sign language translator. This was quite an experiance I have to say! I had actually never spoken to a deaf person before, and I really had to get used to it. I had to force myself to look at the deaf person, and not at the translator. With these three persons, who were active members of Fevlado (Federatie van Vlaamse DovenOrganisaties) and were able to share a lot of information about the culture of the deaf community. An interesting point is that because of the CI's many deaf children learn to understand and speak spoken language very well (as we observed!) and therefore many children do not feel the need to learn sign language. However, at later ages (18-20), many people turn to the deaf community because they miss people who they can really relate to. At that time, many of them also want to use sign language.

All in all a very interesting day with way too much information which we were not able to write down. Fortunately, we will speak with a few employees of the school soon.


Karin

First visit to the school for children with hearing impairments

On June 11th, Pieter and I visited the school we're working with for the first time. It is a large organisation hosting various care institutions and focusing on several target groups. We spoke with the director and the psychologist of the school.

Both the director and the psychologist are enthusiastic about participating in the project and they gladly offer their support and collaboration. Together we decide to focus on the so-called groups of "auditieven", with children who are either deaf or hard-of-hearing, but have no other problems.

We already learn quite some things about deaf children we had never realized. For instance, all deaf children can hear and speak to a certain extent nowadays, because they get Cochlear Implants at a young age. But despite of this implant, deaf children will always experience difficulties with hearing and with understanding spoken or written language. One thing that especially struck me was the fact that many deaf children tend to think that they will be able to hear when they grow older. (Most of) Their parents can also hear! Therefore, deaf adults visit the classes on a regular base, as a role model for the kids.

During the meeting, we have made a global planning for the interviews with school employees, contextual inquiries with families with (a) deaf child(ren) and observations. We are invited to attend the press presentation of a children's book about a deaf girl. This presentation will be held in a kindergarten class with six deaf children. A good opportunity for some early observations!

Karin

Intro

Hi all,

This is our first post on the blog about our research into the world of experience of deaf children for the GR@SP project. We will keep a journal of all of the research activities and invite all of you to participate in (hopefully) lively discussions about our findings.

As you all know, the setup of the use domain involving the deaf children is slightly experimental. We have not identified a specific use domain or technology for this target group. We would like to identify a topic for this use domain (e.g. a problem or a user need) purely based on the input from the target group.

To be able to do that, we follow a contextmapping approach. Contextmapping allows us to thoroughly understand the target group, their daily life, routines, world of experience, problems, needs, wishes, interests, etc. Based on this understanding, we will be able to identify a topic on which we can focus to create a new ICT application for the target group of deaf children.

Within the framework of the contextmapping approach, we plan the following activities:

• Interviews with teachers, psychologists, logopedists, sign language experts, and other people working with deaf children.
• Observations of deaf children in their own context.
• Contextual inquiries with families with one or more deaf children.
• Creative sessions with deaf children.

We have contacted a school for deaf children and this school is quite happy and eager to participate. Together with the school, we chose to involve deaf and hard-of-hearing, but otherwise healthy elementary school children in the project.

Please visit this blog regularly (or, even better: add the RSS feed to your news reader!) and let us know your thoughts, questions, suggestions, etc. via comments on our posts.

We'd like to thank all of you in advance for your active participation!

Cheers,
Pieter Duysburgh (SMIT)
Karin Slegers (CUO)