Abstract

The world is in the midst of an information technology revolution that is fundamentally changing the way government offices, organizations, educational institutions and individuals conduct business and interact with others. It is now becoming necessary for everyone to acquire skills in ICT for everyday activities. Learners with hearing impairment (HI) have been discriminated in most fields, including instruction in ICT skills, due to their limitations in spoken language. On the other hand, very few people have acquired sign language for communicating with hearing-impaired persons. As stated by Laurillard, Derrick and Doel (2016), developments in ICT necessitate the acquisition of digital skills by people with HI in order for them to be fully included in society. This calls for introduction of ICT programmes in schools, libraries and other learning institutions that include learners with HI. Kenya National Library Service Lusumu is endeavouring to bridge the gap of the digital divide and has carried out digital literacy training for learners with HI.

Keywords:Hearing impaired, inclusion, public libraries, digital literacy.

Introduction

Children with hearing impairment are part of the community and their inclusion in digital literacy programmes is important so that they will not be shut out. Digital literacy has taken the world by storm and anyone without the skills is left a thousand miles behind in development. The embracing of ICT in education has changed the way learning is done and has created a barrier to learners with hearing impairment (HI), who in most cases are not able to acquire the digital skills due to the oral communication barrier. Very few people have acquired sign language skills that enable direct communication to deaf people in the giving of instruction. In this respect, sign language emerges as a more dynamic language that removes barriers between deaf and hearing people. To bridge the gap between the hearing and the hearing impaired, there has to be a medium of communication, and ICT plays this role successfully (Lerslip, 2019, 2–4).

ICT training for children with HI is basically empowered by Kenya's policy on ICT mainstreaming, the main aim of which is to help citizens acquire technology skills through education and other training.