Social determinants affecting the access of deaf youths to higher education

Abstract

Language acquisition and the relationship between language and cognition have been scarcely studied in deaf people, most of which are born in hearing families who know little about this handicap and about Mexican Sign Language (MSL). Deaf individuals do not acquire language as hearing people do, which are surrounded by their likes, a situation that has a considerable cognitive and social impact. This study presents the experiences of a group of deaf youths registered in Iztapalapa Institute of Technology II who study engineering with the help of an MSL interpreter in a context of educational inclusion and thus sharing classes with normal hearing fellow students. The purpose was to know the language acquisition process in deaf individuals and their experiences in higher education. Semi-structured interviews were performed in order to find out how they perceive their own life history, the role of their mothers in their MSL acquisition and their experience in higher education. It was concluded that the three determinants affecting the access of the handicapped to higher education are the concept of discapacity, the process of language acquisition and the social networks.