Assessing the Effectiveness of an Augmented Reality Application for the Literacy Development of Arabic Children with Hearing Impairments

Word and Sign is a mobile AR application that was developed to support the literacy development of Arabic children who are deaf or hard of hearing. The utilization of AR is intended to support reading, particularly the process of mapping a printed word to its corresponding ArSL. In this paper, the performances of elementary grade children who are deaf or hard of hearing are assessed after they are taught thirteen new words using two methods: AR using Word and Sign and a traditional teaching approach using ArSL, fingerspelling and pictures. The assessment is conducted as a series of tasks in which participants are asked to associate a printed word with its corresponding picture and ArSL. The findings show that participants who were taught via the AR application completed significantly more tasks successfully and with significantly fewer errors compared to participants who were taught the new words via a traditional approach. These findings encourage the utilization of AR inside and outside the classroom to support the literacy development of children with hearing impairments.