Children, sign language and multimedia: An ideal match

This paper considers the factors that make multimedia an ideal tool for teaching sign language to hearing children in integrated schools. An appropriate vocabulary taught to children would enable interactions during play and would facilitate the formation of social groups between hearing impaired and hearing children. Children have advantages over adults in learning sign language and research has shown that learning sign language has positive outcomes for hearing children. Multimedia is well suited to teaching sign language because it conveys the movement, emphasis and facial expression essential to the meaning of sign language. Multimedia enables the appropriate level of repetition: allows variable levels of interactivity; can assess the user's progress and adjust the difficulty accordingly,. Well-designed multimedia is engaging for children as it incorporates engaging elements such as songs, stories, rhymes and explicit teaching presented by fictitious characters.