Sign Language as Accommodation for Deaf Students in Accessing Education at Universities

摘要

Education is the right of every Indonesian citizen, including persons with disabilities. Inclusive education as a form of education for all has not been well implemented at the university level. Deaf children who are studying at a university have not received proper accommodation. The purpose of this study was to identify the barriers of deaf in accessing education and the right solutions to overcome these problems. Based on literature studies, observations, and interviews with the deaf, obtained results that (1) Deaf children have obstacles to hearing, so vocabulary mastery and language development are hampered. Cognitive development is one of the important abilities that every child must have, and language authority is very influential. Whereas for the deaf children, language mastery is hampered due to hearing barriers that children with hearing impairment have. While the language acquisition of deaf children is obtained from sign language, which in practice has not received support from the environment. At the tertiary level the needs of deaf children remain the same, namely access to sign language as their mother language; (2) deaf children are individuals who have their own uniqueness, in the form of a conditional culture. Sign language has its own language structure as other languages such as syntax, morphology, semantics and phonology. So that in providing accommodation for deaf children both in the scope of basic education to higher education, in the form of the use of sign language to be able to access education.