Comprehension of basic mathematics among children with hearing impairment using multimedia in accessible and non-accessible format a comparative study

Teaching mathematics has been a complex issue for educators as well as learners. Same is the condition for the hearing impaired learners. Multimedia can be a big facilitator in order to render simpler and effective learning methods in the field of teaching mathematics to the hearing impaired students. The guidelines of United Nations Convention of Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD, 2007), makes provision for creation of information in accessible format. However there are no research studies to establish that teaching mathematics through the accessible format of multimedia would increase comprehension levels in children with hearing impairment. According to Mary Ellen Foster (2003) in her study on visual comprehension found that `Intuitively, one way of determining the usefulness of any presentation of data is by measuring the ease with which tasks involving that data can be performed using that presentation'. It may be noted that children with hearing impairment use visual techniques in their thought process, therefore accessible format of multimedia will enhance their comprehension levels. Accessible format includes techniques such as captioning, sign language and audio description. This can be very helpful in processing information by hearing impaired children. The study investigated the effects of multimedia in accessible format, through the use of captioning and Indian sign language (ISL), on hearing impaired children. Hearing impaired viewers watched twice, the short multimedia with and without accessibility formats respectively. Their reactions were recorded on a questionnaire developed for the purpose of the study. Forty nine students participated in this study from two deaf schools of Mumbai, India. Analysis of the data showed that there was difference in the effects of accessible and non accessible formats of on the Hearing Impaired viewers. The study also showed that accessible formats increase the comprehension of the subject of the multimedia and use of ISL and captioning helped hearing impaired students to understand concepts better. The hearing impaired persons correlated watching the ISL interpreter with understanding the concept of the topic of multimedia. Placement of the ISL interpreter in the screen was also covered under the study.