Um modelo conceitual para apoiar o desenvolvimento de ferramentas computacionais para auxiliar no processo de aquisição da língua de sinais por criança surda

Abstract

Language is an important resource for the social and cognitive development of the human being. Usually, it is acquired naturally, up to five years of age, from the interaction of the child with the family and social environment. However, deaf children of hearing parents (90% of cases) do not have the opportunity to interact with their natural language from birth, since the communication channel used by the hearing parents (auditory) is distinguished from the deaf child (visual). Therefore, this linguistic difference, in most cases, makes it impossible for the child to receive the adequate input to acquire sign language in the ideal period. This situation implies the late acquisition of language, causing serious damage to their learning, their social and cognitive development, as well as the family relationship. Therefore, the hearing parents need to know the sign language in order to approximate the deaf child with the language as early as possible, thus enabling the child to develop their language in a natural way. In this perspective, technology is an important resource to assist the deaf child access to sign language. However, computational tools for deaf children up to the age of five are still scarce, especially in the Brazilian Sign Language – Libras. This work has addressed this gap by developing a conceptual model to support the computational tool design in order to assist the deaf child of hearing parents in the acquisition of sign language. The model has been created from a detailed study on the development of the tongue and variables related to the sign language acquisition process by the deaf child of hearing parents. Other issues regarded are the target audience and the computational technology available. The proposed model was organized from three guiding axes: objective, target audience and technology. Based on this, a set of guidelines was developed in order to orientate the tools design for acquiring the language of the deaf child between 2 and 3 years. The conceptual model and the guidelines proposed in this dissertation were validated through an initial prototype of a móbile application made available for the Android and iOS platforms. The prototype, denoted Loodus, was evaluated by deaf, deaf educators and interpreters of Libras, using a semi-structured questionnaire and obtaining positive results.