An Environment for Deaf Accessibility to Educational Content Eleni Efthimiou, Stavroula-Evita Fotinea ILSP – Institute for Language and Speech Processing eleni_e@ilsp.gr, evita@ilsp.gr Abstract Here it is attempted to present a platform environment that allows development of various educational applications fully accessible by deaf users. Subject to Design for All primes, the environment is built on methodological principles which adopt sign language as the basic means for communication of linguistically uttered educational content. It also makes extensive use of visual objects to support comprehension and navigation at all levels of human- computer interaction. Currently available instantiations of the environment have incorporated both video for content presentation and an avatar based dynamic sign synthesis mechanism. The educational applications to be referred to when discussing the design principles and user requirements taken into account, include one web-based and one off- line GSL teaching tool for the same school level (early primary school) as well as a vocational training tool for adult users. 1. GSL: an official minority language Sign languages (SLs) are natural languages articulated in the 3D space, where the linguistic massage is organized according to geometrical parameters for the expression of semantic-syntactic relations, visually represented on and with the signer’s body or in the space in front of him/her [21], [22], [18]. The Greek Sign Language (GSL) has been developed as a minority non-written language system, in a socio-linguistic environment similar to those holding for most other known sign languages. It is a natural language system used as the mother language of the Greek deaf community, where estimations raise GSL natural signers to about 40,600 (1986 survey of Gallaudet Univ.). In addition to the above, there is also a large number of hearing non-native signers of GSL, mainly students of GSL and families of deaf people. Records of the Hellenic Federation of the Deaf (HFD) show that in the last five years the demand for classes of GSL as a second language has radically increased [12]. This fact finds an explanation in the recently increased demand for GSL knowledge in the local language market, given that in the year 2000, GSL was recognized as an official language of the Hellenic State (Law 2817/2000), with a direct consequence for the use of the language in education and official communication services. Following the national policy for integration of people with disabilities in the society, a recent increase of deaf students in mainstreamed education is to be noticed. Nonetheless, a considerable proportion of the deaf student population still remains scattered in other institutions, minor town units for the deaf and private tuition. Beyond legislative requirements though, integration of the Deaf in the society is heavily based upon the quality of education they receive, and although GSL is the official language for education of the Deaf population in Greece, educational material and tools still remain very poor. This is partly due to the widely holding misconception that since deaf people may see, they can access written material. However, born deaf individuals find it extremely difficult to make associations between concepts and written forms. This happens because the written form of an utterance is a convention for the representation of sounds, which is incomprehensible in the case where no perception of sound is possible. According to statistics of the Hellenic Pedagogical Institute [14], the average reading capability of deaf adults corresponds to mid primary school level. This fact seems to be verified by measurements and estimations from other sign languages as well [7]. On the other hand, the nature of the language per se acts as an obstacle ICTA’07, April 12-14, Hammamet, Tunisia