Inclusive dictionary for people with disabilities through an accessible
technological platform
Authors: Araujo Elking , Maldonado-garcés Verónica , Salgado Nelson 
Published: February 2023

One of the greatest challenges for people with disabilities is the lack
of accessibility to information, and communication, in addition, to learning
processes, which results in few possibilities for labor and social
inclusion. Currently, in this sense, research and projects are carried out
to promote strategies that allow greater use of ICTs in the acquisition and
exchange of knowledge to reduce inequalities in terms of accessibility,
especially for people with disabilities and, in general, for priority care
groups. However, sustained processes are required that allow comprehensive
accessibility to people with disabilities.According to studies carried out
by the World Health Organization (WHO), it is estimated that 5% of the
world’s population has a hearing impairment (World Health Organization,
2018). This community generally presents learning problems given the low
effectiveness in the transmission of messages between listeners and
non-listeners, and, regarding information and communication technologies,
there are not enough computerized educational materials that facilitate
communication and Autonomous Learning.It is important to mention that ICT
plays a decisive role in teaching-learning in various educational
environments. Undoubtedly, new technologies can supply means for improving
teaching and learning processes, and managing educational environments in
general, since they facilitate cooperation and collaboration between
students. In addition, they contribute to overcoming social inequalities.
Because sign language is the first language of the deaf community, and since
it is expressed spatially and visually, it is necessary to produce
multimedia content for the generation of computerized educational tools to
properly transmit these messages. The present work is oriented toward
facilitating sign language learning in people with hearing impairment, which
contributes to their coexistence and interaction.We cannot fail to mention
that the approach to nature is mediated by language. Without sufficient
lexical background, any formative action is limited. It is essential to have
a sufficient repertoire of terms that help the speaker understand and know
her environment. Under regular conditions, vocabulary acquisition may be
conditioned by diverse, but drawing events or conditions: access to physical
or digital bibliography, limited educational experience, family environment
little related to reading, etc. The increase in vocabulary in a speaker
facilitates learning. Many reading comprehension problems begin with the
impossibility of properly decoding words.The problem of access to vocabulary
improvement is exacerbated for the deaf community and people with visual
disabilities. The aggravation is because they do not exist in the Ecuadorian
environment, dictionaries that offer information from the Ecuadorian lexicon
not defined in general dictionaries and that, at the same time, contribute
to the interpretation of sign language for the deaf community or that meets
the standards of inclusion necessary to facilitate reading in users with
visual disabilities.In this context, part of our work will be focused on
determining which is the lexicon of Ecuadorian speech that deaf people do
not know. We consider as a hypothesis that the lexicon unknown by deaf
people mostly comprises terms with abstract or very localized references.In
addition, we propose to propose the structure of the design of a
technological platform of the dictionary. This web application would present
the set of lexical entries defined in Spanish and expanded with an author
appointment, accompanied by an image of the referent and a video with sign
language interpretation of both the definition and the appointment. Each
dictionary entry will offer automatic reading on the screen for the
accessibility of no seers. The dictionary macrostructure will be composed of
basic words and expressions of sign language to promote educational interest
and facilitate and energize learning.The work will also be based on a
methodology specialized in web applications such as OOHDM (Object Oriented
Hypermedia Desing Methodology), on free tools for the manipulation of
multimedia audio, video, and images such as Avidemux, Audacy, and Gimp
respectively, in the Netbeans 14.0 development tool with JSF 2.0 framework.
For integration with the database, PostgreSQL will be used.