A Classroom Accessibility Analysis App for Deaf Students

Deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) individuals do not have equal access to audio information in most educational settings, even with visual translation accommodations such as sign language interpreters or captioners. As a result, their learning and retention rates lag behind in comparison with their hearing peers. Research shows DHH individuals lose lecture information due to two main factors largely unaddressed by the traditional accommodations: 1) increased cognitive load associated with processing the visual translation of audio simultaneously with other visual information sources, and 2) visual attention limits associated with viewing layouts that have widely dispersed visuals that may be far away or at awkward viewing angles. We discuss the impact of architectural visuals on the DHH student, accommodation team and discuss an automatic measure of a simple accessibility app and scale using face and body identification from a 360-degree video snapshot.