Deaf Community Seeks to Have Access to Better Education, Inclusion

The native language of deaf individuals is sign language, meaning written text alone does not always ensure full comprehension. For a significant part of the community, written Armenian is a second language, making delivering information in their native language essential for both linguistic and cultural appropriateness.

In a statement provided to the Mirror-Spectator, representatives of the Armenian Deaf Society emphasized that community involvement in developing educational programs, textbooks, dictionaries, and methodological materials related to Armenian Sign Language remains dangerously inadequate.

“Today, the involvement of the deaf community in developing educational programs and dictionaries is neither sufficient nor systematic,” the Armenian Deaf Society stated. “Our firm position is that native speakers of Armenian Sign Language must be involved at every stage of the process — from collecting linguistic material to evaluating textbooks and methodological guides.”

These linguistic discrepancies become critically dangerous in classroom settings when non-deaf specialists or organizations invent artificial signs by translating spoken Armenian words verbatim, the statement continued.

They added, “When a specialist or project independently creates a new sign and presents it as ‘official,’ that sign is often either not used in the community at all or carries an entirely different meaning,” the Armenian Deaf Society explained. “If a teacher, an interpreter, and a deaf child use different signs for the exact same concept, the child is forced to learn conflicting variations rather than a unified linguistic system, hurting language development.”

The Society noted that the core reason the deaf community continues to be bypassed is that certain entities still view inclusivity as service provision rather than an equal partnership.