Shared Responsibility: Understanding Inclusive Environments for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Youth
Inclusion should be a given, not a goal we constantly have to strive for. Yet, for deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) people and cochlear implant (CI) users, everyday environments — schools, workplaces, and social spaces — are often designed without their needs in mind. According to the World Health Organization, over 5% of the world’s population are DHH and experience this as disabling, a number expected to grow. For these individuals, barriers persist not because of their ways of hearing or communicating, but because the world around them is built on assumptions that exclude them.
This project examines the social realities of DHH/CI youth, the social barriers they face in mainstream education, and the environments that define those challenges. These environments could also drive positive change, if we know how to adjust them. At its core, the project asks: Who bears responsibility for inclusion?
Medical and clinical interventions, such as therapies, technologies (e.g., CIs), and training, play a crucial role in supporting individuals. These interventions can be transformative, offering vital tools for communication and participation. However, when research and policy focus solely on individual adaptation, they risk overlooking the environments that create barriers in the first place. This approach places the burden on those who are excluded, rather than on society to change.
This project’s position is that true inclusion requires both individual support and systemic transformation. If social interaction is mutual, then responsibility must be shared. By shifting the focus from individual adaptation to collective action, we can utilize the strengths of diversity and create environments where everyone can thrive.
To learn more about this project, you can contact Claudia.
Studies in this Project
- Affordances for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students’ Social Participation in Mainstream School Environments. This study uses the concept of affordances to analyze how social interaction depends on having opportunities to engage in the first place: opportunities that are shaped by the fit between a student’s capabilities and their environment. DHH youth often have restricted opportunities for full social participation in a hearing-dominant school environment. By reviewing DHH literature and organizing findings into an affordance-based model, we created a matrix that maps where and how social interaction opportunities arise or are limited. This tool helps non-experts identify key leverage points for environmental changes for better DHH inclusion. Read the publication here.
- Cochlear Implant Users’ Experiences of Built, Sound and Social Environment at School. This study interviewed teenagers and young adults with a CI to ask them about their realities of social interaction in secondary and higher education. Analysing the topics of these conversations, we found four themes: Challenges of social participation, human factors underlying barriers, non-human factors underlying barriers, and the various adaptation strategies CI users used to deal with challenges and barriers. This study is still a work in progress, but the publication will eventually be linked here.
- GoingBeyond the I With CI: an Interview-based Design Space. Here we used the same interview data from study 2 but looked at it from a different angle: a design angle! Oftentimes, technologies for DHH people are aimed to extend their individual capabilities: training skills, extending perception, etc. These are valuable, but we noticed that more work could be done to design technologies that address the rest of the world. Why do only DHH people need to train and adapt to interact with hearing people? What if we could design technology to help hearing people better understand why and how a challenge in a conversation with a DHH person emerges, and help solve that challenge by adapting their behaviour? This paper proposes design principles based on the experiences of CI users. Read the publication here.
- Hot-Spot Cafeteria: How do recess environments and social access impact school belonging? Taking a step away from DHH students, we were curious about how — in general — school environments might impact all students’ psychological needs. There is reason to believe that students who can easily socialize during their school break and like the space they are in might have better chances at feeling “like they belong” in their school. Sense of belonging is an important indicator for all kinds of other things, like better academic success and mental health. Wouldn’t it be great if we knew how to raise sense of belonging across all students by making better spaces for school breaks? Of course, that includes DHH students. This study is still a work in progress, but the publication will eventually be linked here.
Making this project accessible, with COMICS!
Academic papers are valuable, but let’s be honest—even researchers sometimes find them tough to read. Worse, if research only results in a paper, people outside the field (or outside academia) may never see it, even if it’s relevant to them.
That’s why this project aims to turn academic findings into comics: a fun, accessible way to share the key insights. We can send these directly to the people who contributed their stories to the research, and they can share them with peers, teachers, and family—helping raise awareness aboutDHH issues.
This is still a work in progress, but check back here for updates! If you are a CI user, you can also contribute, see below...
Calling all CI users for a creative mission!
Please note:This opportunity will close in October 2026.
We’re looking for collaborators to team up with a researcher and artist to create short comics about anything CI-related: funny moments, awkward experiences, messages to the world, wishes, or everyday life. The topic is entirely up to you!
This is a true co-creation: you and the researcher/artist will be credited equally, and the comics will be shared as open access under a Creative Commons license. Interested or know someone who might be? Spread the word. Contact Claudia or directly find the full information & participation form here.
Collaborations
To make sure that the project's values, goals and methods are aligned with what is actually meaningful and useful to CI-users, the project uses participatory approaches that involve CI-users as experts during different stages of projects. Furthermore, we can benefit from a close collaboration with the ENT department of Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), as well as experts from adjacent fields like disability studies, design & architecture.
People involved
Psychology, Leiden University - Claudia Libbi, Carolien Rieffe, Adva Eichengreen, Josine Buiskool, André Götze.
Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) - Johan H.M. Frijns, Chris H. Stronks.
Architecture, TU Delft University - Alexander Koutamanis.
Interaction Technology & Co-Design, University of Twente - Robby van Delden.
Universität Duisburg-Essen, Germany - Karolin Schäfer.
Funding
This project is funded via INTENSE, which is a multidisciplinary effort to research, improve and evaluate brain implants like CIs and their effect on the people who use them in their daily lives.
Related reads
Annual symposium on CI-users within INTENSE - read here!
Inclusive Schools for young d/Deaf CI users ESPCI 2023 - read here!
