Social movement that regards deafness as a difference in human experience rather than a disability.
Published in Chapter:
Information Challenges of the Deaf in their Health and Social Care Needs
Cayley Guimarães (Federal University of Paraná, Brazil), Diego Roberto Antunes (Federal University of Paraná, Brazil), Laura Sánchez García (Federal University of Paraná, Brazil), and Sueli Fernandes (Federal University of Paraná, Brazil)
Copyright: © 2013
|Pages: 19
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-3986-7.ch005
Abstract
The members of the deaf communities have been excluded for many years from society and their own culture. Deaf culture is a term applied to the social movement that holds deafness to be a difference in human experience (which includes the right to use Sign Language) rather than a disability. The deaf suffer, daily, through life-threatening situations that go unattended, mostly due to lack of awareness, proper practices, and policies, among others. The Deaf are in dire need of acknowledgment of their plight, in particular by Health and Social Care practitioners, politicians, and researchers. This chapter calls attention to this minority and its needs, including social, political, citizenship, strategies, and polices dimensions. It presents a Human-Computer Interaction architecture with which to inform the design of Information and Communication Technologies to aid Health and Social Care professionals in their work with the deaf.