The classroom built environment as an inclusive learning process for the deaf students: Contribution of ergonomics in design

Abstract

Since the Declaration of Salamanca in 1994, the educational system has concentrated efforts to interpret and integrate the deaf person in regular schools. For a special child the school represents a significant area of learning and socialization, and only the assurance of the two can guarantee real inclusion. The world of a deaf person is not of the hearing, but of the vision. The built environment of a classroom has the property to integrate basic functions for the human development, such as teaching and learning. The question we pose is how classroom environment interferes with the teaching-learning process of the deaf student cognition process. In this paper, we attempt to discuss the role of the classroom design considering environmental comfort and layout. To do so, we used methods of built environment evaluation as a basis to assess how deaf students perceive and use the classroom.