African Journal of AIDS Research 2010, 9(3): 307–313 Printed in South Africa — All rights reserved African Journal of AIDS Research is co-published by NISC (Pty) Ltd and Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group Copyright © NISC (Pty) Ltd AJAR ISSN 1608–5906 EISSN 1727–9445 doi: 10.2989/16085906.2010.530189 HIV/AIDS knowledge among adolescent sign-language users in South Africa Victor de Andrade* and Bontle Baloyi University of the Witwatersrand, School of Human and Community Development, Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology, Private Bag 3, Wits 2050, Johannesburg, South Africa *Corresponding author, e-mail: victor.deandrade@wits.ac.za People with hearing impairment may have difficulty accessing information about HIV/AIDS, especially those who use sign language. Because adolescence is characterised by sexual maturation, it is important to gauge levels of HIV/ AIDS awareness and knowledge in this age group. For this scoping study, we interviewed seven adolescent South African Sign Language (SASL) users (aged 15 to 21) who were attending a school outside Johannesburg which caters for hearing-impaired learners from limited socioeconomic backgrounds. The responses were transcribed and themes were clustered to extract the essence of what was conveyed. The participants appeared to have basic knowledge about HIV and AIDS (e.g. prevention through the use of condoms); however, gaps in their knowledge included misperceptions about contracting HIV infection (e.g. through touching people with HIV or AIDS, or rejecting a person who was possibly HIV-positive as a preventive measure) and confusing HIV disease with other illnesses (e.g. cancer). Overall, the adolescents appeared to have insufficient information about HIV transmission and did not appear to fully understand the consequences of infection. The findings correlate with other research in Africa showing the difficulties experienced by people with disabilities, including hearing impairment, in accessing HIV/ AIDS information. The article advocates for policymakers to include people with hearing impairment, particularly sign language users, in HIV-prevention programmes. Keywords: communication, disability, disability studies, hearing impairment, qualitative research, scoping study Background The high number of people with HIV infection in South Africa has dramatic and far-reaching effects at the individual, family, community and national levels, thereby affecting the social wellbeing of individuals and the economy of the country (Van Dyk, 2001; Barnett & Whiteside, 2006). Adolescents today are considered vulnerable to HIV due to prevailing early sexual debut and tendencies to have older sexual partners and to engage in transactional sex (Department of Health, 2007). Moreover, deaf adolescents, who may be engaging in relatively early sexual activity, may be at a greater risk of contracting HIV because they may not be able to access HIV prevention, testing and treatment programmes (Hanass-Hancock, 2009). As a result, a population with hearing disability in a country with high HIV prevalence suggests that there is a group of people whose needs require special consideration. Adolescents’ knowledge and perceptions with regards to HIV/AIDS especially need to be explored during this stage of sexual development. Deaf and hearing people may be differentially exposed to HIV/AIDS information campaigns. HIV-prevention campaigns can be broadly divided into communica- tion programmes, peer-education programmes, and the provision of information, education and counselling (IEC) materials (Department of Health, 2007). Ongoing HIV/ AIDS-awareness programmes in South Africa include loveLife, Soul City and Khomanani, as well as the lifeskills courses offered at schools as per the Revised National Curriculum Statement (Department of Education, 2002; Johnson, Schierhout & Matabeni, 2006). These programmes are reported to have different levels of efficacy as research has demonstrated that a combination of programmes yielded a significant increase in condom usage between experimental and control groups among participants aged 15–30 years (Johnson et al., 2006). However, the generalisation of findings to include assumptions about individuals with physical disabilities is questionable. For instance, such participants were not included in the First National HIV and AIDS Communication Survey, 2006, which was conducted to gauge the impact of the Khomanani campaign (Johnson et al ., 2006). Likewise, Watermeyer (2006) criticised the efficacy of the 2005 loveLife programme in terms of not portraying or including people with disabilities. The majority of HIV/ AIDS-education programmes in Africa have “targeted apparently normal adolescents” (Osowole & Oladimeji, 2000, p. 94). The Khomanani campaign, for example, has acknowledged that not enough has been done to meet the needs of people with disabilities as stigmas still persist where such individuals may be viewed as sexually inactive (Wazakili, Mpofu & Devlieger, 2006; Department of Health, 2007).