The importance of hearing parents of deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children learning sign language is well documented. However, parents face many challenges in this learning process. This study investigates the experiences of Dutch hearing parents learning Dutch Sign Language (NGT) or Sign-supported Dutch through semi-structured interviews with 21 parents and 6 NGT teachers. The interviews explored parents’ and teachers’ perspectives on parental sign language courses, additional learning materials, and the challenges parents face in learning sign language. The findings highlight the value of DHH teachers and home-based initial courses, as well as the importance of courses aligning with the child’s developmental stage and extending beyond vocabulary level. Both parents and teachers appreciated learning materials that could be used together by parent and child but expressed a need for additional and more elaborate resources. Common challenges included language-specific difficulties, such as mastering sign order and adapting to a visual language, and external barriers, such as difficulties accessing courses and conf licting expert advice regarding the use of sign language. These findings underscore the need for more accessible courses, longer-duration support, and greater consistency among professionals in their advice. This would better support hearing parents in effectively learning sign language and ensuring their DHH children have full access to language from an early age.
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This deaf-led work critically explores Deaf Tech, challenging conventional understandings of technologies ‘for’ deaf people as merely assistive and accessible, since these understandings are predominantly embedded in medical and audist ideologies. By employing participatory speculative workshops, deaf participants from different European countries envisioned technologies on Eyeth - a mythical planet inhabited by deaf people - centered on their perspectives and curiosities. The results present a series of alternative socio-technical narratives that illustrate qualitative aspects of technologies desired by deaf people. This study advocates for expanding the scope of deaf technological landscapes, emphasizing the needs of establishing deaf-centered HCI, including the development of methods and concepts that truly prioritize deaf experiences in the design of technologies intended for their use.
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