Leonardo helps the hearing impaired

Young hearing-impaired people are one of the most disadvantaged groups in the labour market. Deafness is first of all a communication handicap that makes contact with the hearing majority difficult. And what is worse – the deafness handicap significantly complicates education and training. Laymen largely believe that it is sufficient to teach people with hearing impairments to read and that they are then able to learn using the written texts. However, only experts know that these people generally cannot read. Also, the level of their general education is often low, even if they are normally intelligent. Therefore, their chances in the labour market are already very limited and are shrinking. Technological progress has made many traditional occupations obsolete, where people with a hearing handicap could be employed. On the other hand, technological progress also creates new opportunities. New information and communication technologies, especially the internet, offer attractive possibilities. Moreover, the internet is a nearly ideal medium for the hearing impaired, because it is mostly visual.

Begun in 2000, the Czech Federation of Parents and Friends of the Hearing-Impaired has implemented a pilot project, the Internet as a Potential Source of New Job Opportunities for Non-Hearing People. It co-operates with the most respected professionals in the hearing disabilities area (some of them are hearing-impaired), develops and tests training programmes on information and communication technologies for hearing-impaired youth and develops new methods for enhancing the competencies of hearing-impaired people in reading and writing skills in both their national language and English. Nine partners from the Czech Republic, the UK, Belgium and Austria participate in this project.

Testing of the newly-developed training materials

The expected results of the project are curricula, teaching methodology and training materials for six training courses:

1. Acquiring basic skills in computing and internet usage
2. Enha ncing the writing and reading competencies of the hearing-impaired in their national language (Czech, English, German and Dutch)
3. Buildi ng basic English writing and reading competencies of hearing-impaired, non-native English speakers for computing and internet usage
4. T raining in basic computing typography
5. Creating websites
6. Understanding how to use the internet to earn one´s living

During the first year of the project, working versions of the aforementioned courses have been developed. Within the second year, the proposal of concepts and teaching methods have been tested with representative samples of hearing-impaired people. In the Czech Republic this testing was finished by time of the press conference. The Minister of Informatics, Vladimír Mlynář, presented letters of attendance to the testing participants. All participants in the training course were, for example, able to write the annual report of the organisation of hearing-impaired people for the press. They also created their own websites and improved their skills in both writing and reading the Czech and English languages. Within the independent testing body, all participants successfully passed their examinations for the European Computer Driving License (ECDL). Half of them were successful in all seven modules; the other succeeded in the majority of modules. One third of the participants have already found a job.

Minister of Informatics, Vladimír Mlynář,
at the briefing on the project

In the last year of the project all texts and methodologies were improved using the results of the testing. They have also been translated into the languages of the partner countries. These newlydeveloped training materials will be offered to all schools educating people with hearing disabilities and to all employment services organising training courses for job seekers with hearing disabilities.