Improving Class Pace for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Students

Improving Class Pace for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Students

Rochester Institute of Technology

Following multimedia lectures in mainstream classrooms in university education is challenging for deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) students even when they are provided accommodations to best address their individual needs. Due to multiple visual sources of information (teacher, slides, interpreter, blackboard), these students struggle to divide their attention among several simultaneous sources of input, which may result in their missing important parts of the lecture content; as a result, DHH students’ access to information can be limited in comparison to that of their hearing peers, and so their academic achievements may be impacted. This paper introduces SlidePacer, a tool aimed at improving coordination between the instructor’s speech, the sign language interpretation of the lecture and the slide projection change. The goal of this software is to prevent DHH students’ loss of information by promoting an adequate pace of the lecture, which can contribute to their learning and academic achievements. We conclude with discussion of future work.