Bilingual Reading Development Applications for Turkish Sign Language Knowing Deaf Children

Project Summary
Grantee : Association of People with Hearing Impairment of Turkey
Purpose : Supporting reading skills, language and cognitive development of the deaf children aged older than 4 years.
Location : Turkey
Grant Amount : 199.726 TL
Project Partner : Boğaziçi University, Gallaudet University
Period : 8 July 2019 - 7 July 2020
Status : Completed
Project Year : 2019

Background

Despite the presence of materials supporting deaf children's language, education and cognitive development in western countries, in Turkey visual pre-school materials for pre-school deaf children are very limited. For this reason, deaf children's level of knowledge, reading skills and language and cognitive development cannot develop sufficiently. There is a great need for materials that help deaf children to develop Turkish and Turkish Sign Language, improve their creativity, influence their future academic and social life.

Project Goals

  • Two bilingual children's stories in Turkish and Turkish Sign Language will be prepared. Stories will be translated to ASL and English.
  • Signers will take training on children story narration.
  • Illustration and graphic design of the story will be made and videos will be montaged.
  • Example course plans will be prepared for teachers to use stories in the classroom.

Project Results

  • A bilingual children storybook application in Turkish Sign Language and Turkish, compatible with Android and IOS was developed.
  • An authentic story was written entitled “Keloğlan Marine Engineer” and this story was translated to Turkish Sign Language, Turkish, American Sign Language and English. The story was integrated both the applications of Association of People with Hearing Impairment of Turkey and Gallaudet University.
  • The story named Baobab that have been created by Gallaudet University was also translate into Turkish Sign Language and Turkish.
  • A question set was created for each of these stories to strengthen children’s learning process.
  • Stories were downloaded for more than 4.000 times.
  • In cooperation with Boğaziçi University, a scientific article was published in which the experiences of developing bilingual educational material were presented.
  • The project won the first prize in the Accessible Digital Applications category of Turkey Accessibility Awards organized by Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Services.

Testimonials

“I now watch the story in sign language. I am also learning the alphabet. I really like it. I would love many more different stories like that.” 6 Years Old Child


“When I read a storybook, I rarely understood a word. I kept asking my mother. My family is deaf. They are not good at Turkish words. I was having a hard time. Discovering this application made me really happy. I have never done such practice before. I am so happy.” 14 Years Old Child






COMPLETED OTHER PROJECTS

By filling in this form, you agree that all kinds of personal data that are acquired and will be acquired via contact forms and e-bulletin subscription or that you shared/will share with our foundation can be recorded, stored, updated, deleted, disclosed to third parties, transferred, classified, used to contact you, and processed in ways listed in the law and relevant legislation by Sabancı Foundation (Data Controller) within the scope of the “Law on Protection of Personal Data” numbered 6698 and within the framework of the basis and procedures, the purposes, and methods predicated in the Sabancı Foundation Information Note on Law on Protection of Personal Data.