Abstract:

It is important to increase awareness of society’s responsibility to provide better educational opportunities for individuals with hearing-impaired. In our study, we aimed to examination of the factors affecting hearing-impaired individuals’ participating in sports. The research sample consists of 108 (16 females, 92 males) voluntary hearing-impaired individual’s participating from seven different cities (Elazığ, Kahramanmaraş, Bingöl, Sivas, Batman, Bitlis, and Muş) in Turkey. Survey Method was used to obtain information on the demographic knowledge, educational attainment and occupation, communication and sports skills and trainer preference of the participants. 44-item “factors impacting participation of deaf athletes in sport,” developed by Kurkova Válková and Scheetz in 2011 was used in the study. It has been observed that the participants consist of individuals who engage in athletics, football, basketball, volleyball and the one who do not do sports. The data has been collected with the sign language experts through one on one interview. It has been identified that the trainer preference does not have importance and hearing-impaired individuals experience difficulty in communicating with other individuals. In addition, it has been seen that doing sports affect lives of the hearing-impaired significantly in positively. Consequently, it has been found that insufficient physical conditions of the sports facilities, the trainer status and not being able to participate in sports organizations are some of the factors which affect hearing-impaired individuals’ participating in sports. Activities and games can be adapted and developed for disabled people so that these people can participate to the activities. This can be done collaboratively and all people can improve their personal performance and capacity.

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