9th International Conference on ICT for Sustainable Development

Authors - Varghese Kandathil, Anie Mathew
Abstract - We critically review the existing studies on ICT-based assistive technologies for the Hearing Impaired (HI) with a specific focus on Sign Language Automating Assistive Technologies (SLAAT). The review reveals the underlying user-centered design approach which has exclusionary implications for the HI. Hence, we analyze the linguistic processes that inform SLAAT which again shows the user-centered approach and its associated limitations for HI learners’ acquisition of language and socialization from the Deaf community’s cultural perspective. We find that the user-centered processes and design of SLAAT can isolate the HI from their immediate society and its linguistic heritage. Thus, while SLAAT is inclusive by facilitating the interactions of others with the HI and vice versa and increasing the access of the HI, it simultaneously produces socio-cultural and ecological linguistic exclusion. Technologies with such exclusions are considered socially unsustainable within the ESG framework of sustainability. Hence, to mitigate the exclusion and increase the social sustainability, we propose a human-centered design approach which is an expansion of the culture-centered design approach. We further suggest broad initial steps to develop human-centered designs which can be combined with the currently prevalent user-centered design approach.