This presentation will focus on the provision of access to audiovisual media for deaf and hard of hearing children in Poland. I will start with an overview of the current situation and identify the main challenges faced by viewers and producers. Next, I will attempt to point at possible improvements for the future.
In today’s society multimedia materials are part of everybody’s lives. It is unquestionable that they also play an important role in children’s socio-educational development and influence their views of the world. TV is a powerful tool in creating young people’s opinions and it can be argued that it also unites children who have a common ‘TV background’ in that they have things to talk about as they identify themselves or refer to the same values presented on TV. Another very important issue is the influence that TV and other multimedia have on the development of children’s language. However, young people with hearing impairments might be disadvantaged in this area since not that many audiovisual productions are fully accessible to them. I intend to analyse the provision of accessible multimedia for deaf and hard of hearing children in Poland, discussing both sign language and subtitles as they are used in these programmes today, as well as their advantages and disadvantages. Some references to Polish sign language versus the Polish sign system will also be made. The analysis of audiovisual programmes will be partly based on contacts established with Polish TV broadcasters, the Polish Association of the Deaf, DVD distributors in Poland as well as on information from relevant Internet websites, such as blogs, forums, etc.
For the sake of comparability, I will delve into the achievements of other selected countries with regard to access to the media for hearing-impaired children and will present them in the light of relevant European Union legislation and directives. The empirical part of my presentation will be substantiated by research carried out in special schools from different parts of the country as well as by communication with professionals working with hearing-impaired children. The main thread of my study will focus on the potential networks that can be established between access to multimedia programmes on the one hand and the development of language and reading skills by deaf and hard of hearing children on the other hand.