A EUROPEAN DEAF UNIVERSITY

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A EUROPEAN DEAF UNIVERSITY?

• 85th anniversary of the
• Latvian Association of the Deaf

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Every deaf student as a project

• We want to secure every deaf persons right of
  access to education. This means
• The access of deaf persons to all educational
  possibilities has to be open
• If in a certain area this is not the case and a
  deaf person wants to enter this area, he or she
  becomes a project.
• The strategy of EDU is also to look for answers
  for the following questions
• Why reach so few deaf people the study ability?
• Why speak even deaf academics of a glass
  ceiling in the job market

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Political and/or scientific goals of EDU ?

• Especially in minority questions you can never
  separate scientific and political issues cleanly.
• Politically, Deaf people should be given equal
  access to communication and information
  (information society). This includes higher
  education.

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Political goals of EDU

• Make the EU authorities aware of the educational
  needs of deaf people
• Argue for a European coordinative structure as
  the only solution
• systematise / improve deaf education in the EU as
  a whole

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Scientific goals of EDU

• Observation of technological and educational
  development utilisation of most recent solutions
• Research of its own in the whole area of
  deafness, coordination of research and
  developmental programmes

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Scientific/organisational goals of EDU

• Evaluation of existing deaf educational programs,
  spreading information on them all over Europe in
  order to distribute successful models and by that
  to create a higher level of deaf education in
  Europe as a whole
• Coordination of national activities, providing
  comprehensive information for all people
  interested (deaf, parents and teachers of the
  deaf, interpreters, politicians, etc.)

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Educational goals of EDU

• Development of new elements of higher education
  for the deaf in cooperation with existing
  institutions working in the field, with some
  stress on virtual university, distance learning
  etc.
• Taking individual care of deaf people looking for
  adequate educational possibilities (counselling,
  tutoring, etc.)
• Though an EDU should concentrate on principles of
  deaf education, it should not exclude other
  people with special needs (e.g. hearing
  handicapped)

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Why EDU is a contribution to reach the goal of
equal access

• The language problem of deaf people and their
  (in average) bad chances in education can only be
  overcome by a joint European effort, answering
  the needs of coordination and focusing
• EDU is the alternative to the now existing, very
  different and diverging systems of deaf education
• EDU can identify the existing deficits in deaf
  education as a whole
• EDU can help to create qualified jobs for deaf
  people in whole Europe
• By representing a deaf area of its own in
  higher education, EDU strengthens also deaf
  culture

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The location of EDU

• Not located at a specific place (only the
  coordination centre has to be located)
• Coordinative structure, paralleling the structure
  of the European Union

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Objectives of EDU 1

• Describe the state of the art of deaf education,
  summarize and evaluate existing information
• Disseminate best practice, provide best
  possibilities for deaf people in education
• Provide best technological solutions, adapted for
  deaf people

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Objectives of EDU 2

• Make deaf people aware of the many local,
  regional or national activities of their group
• Make all sorts of studies accessible for deaf
  people, inform about educational possibilities
• Build and structure a 'European Deaf Research
  Area'

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Working principles of EDU 1

• Do not compete with existing studies or
  institutions (but cooperate, evaluate and
  recommend)
• Develop new studies where necessary
• Integrate existing experiences and scientific
  results
• Perform own research where necessary

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Working principles of EDU 2

• Negotiate with authorities in order to put
  scientific results into practice
• Create jobs for talented deaf persons

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Main problems of EDU

• The number problem
• The location problem
• The isolation problem
• And again a language problem
• Consequences
• An appropriate solution for deaf education has to
  utilize elements of distance education
• The standards of hearing universities have to
  be met

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Some conditions for a successful application of
distance education

• Specially adapted bilingual system of education
  sign language - written language - spoken
  language, the visual channel being the channel
  for information and communication
• Provide individual solutions
• Provide as many communicative instruments as
  possible (electronic telecommunication,
  videophone, interpreter services)
• Provide bilingual models of access to all offers
  of information society
• Allow a sign language community and deaf culture
  for those deaf who decide on that

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Some basic information

• Main hypothesis
• Information and communication are transported via
  language.
• Therefore the language dimension is the central
  dimension of a deaf-oriented solution of
  education.

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Factors which create the 'language problem' of
deaf people

• Lacking or insufficient access to acoustic
  channel
• Visual compensation concerning language (sign
  language) not offered or exposition time to such
  a compensation too low
• Grave time loss for language learning (missing
  the phase of special cognitive plasticity) by
  waiting for medical or non-compensatory (oral
  only) solution to language perception and
  learning

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Factors of language problem 2

• Expectations of hearing parents of deaf children
  (they want a 'normal' speaking child) diverge
  from a compensatory practice
• Deafness seen exclusively as a medical problem

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The result of these negative factors

• Some of the most important and effective years of
  language learning and information acquisition is
  stolen from many deaf people.
• From this follows a disadvantage in written
  language competence. (The degree depends on the
  adequacy and effectiveness of the respective
  educational system and on their socialisation as
  a whole.)
• Therefore a reduced access to almost all
  information sources of the hearing majority
  exists.

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Why many hearing people cannot understand the
language needs of deaf people

• A false analogy
• Blind people have no access to written language
  (coded in the visual channel)
• Give them a tactile version of the writing
  (Braille)
• Deaf people have no access to spoken language
  (coded in the acoustic channel)
• Give them a visual version of the speech
  (writing)

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The language demands of deaf people in a human
rights perspective

• ... from a cognitive-communicative standpoint
• Consider conditions for the successful learning
  of any language.
• Consequences for deaf people.

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Conditions for the successful learning of any
language

• Offer a fully fledged language (naturally adapted
  for children via motherese) systematically in
  all communicative situations
• Offer a language which is easily accessible and
  produceable
• Allow language to be 'anchored' on everyday
  (non-verbal) cognitions
• Compensate for losses or deficits by using other
  accessible or working subsystems

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Consequences for the language leaning of deaf
people

• Specially adapted bilingual system sign language
  - written language - spoken language
• Allow a sign language community and deaf culture
  for those deaf who decide on that
• Provide as many communicative instruments as
  possible (electronic telecommunication,
  videophone, interpreter services)
• Given the actual situation of most deaf (low
  competence in reading/writing, therefore minimal
  access to almost all information sources),
  provide a bilingual model of access to all offers
  of information society

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Challenges for the next years in deaf
communication and education

• Technical demands.
• Educational and scientific issues.

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Technical demands

• Better and unified standards for communicative
  aids
• More software for visual communication (and
  transforming acoustic output into a visual one
  for commonly used programs)
• Implementation of communication and information
  systems for deaf people
• Dealing with a big amount of video files (sign
  language) for on-line and remote communication
  and information processing (includes video file
  processing and storage, respective databases,
  sign language recognition and synthesis)

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Educational and scientific issues

• The quality of deaf education has to be elevated
  to normal standard
• Increased participation of the deaf in planning,
  research, information, and evaluation
• Looking at the central group of 'Deaf' as a
  community which has to get rights similar to
  (cultural or linguistic) minority groups, but
  offering the sign language services to all who
  think that they can profit from them at least
  partially

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Organisational measures

• Founding a European Sign Language Resource
  Association (ESLRA)
• Founding a European Deaf University (EDU)

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European Sign Language Resource Association
(ESLRA)

• .following the model of ELRA
• Should provide standards for sign language
  documentation, databases, corpuses, instigate
  research on and development of applied sign
  language linguistics

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Contact

• E-Mail franz.dotter_at_uni-klu.ac.at
• Fax [phone]
• Tel. [phone]
• Web http//www.uni-klu.ac.at/zgh