Promoting Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children’s Theory of Mind and Emotion Understanding Erasmus Project

Project Title

Promoting Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children’s Theory of Mind and Emotion Understanding

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Research and innovation; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Disabilities – special needs

Project Summary

The Strategic Partnership “Promoting Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children’s Theory of Mind and Emotion Understanding” (ProToM) has developed the educational training program THE MIND READERS to promote Theory of Mind skills and Emotion Understanding as well as the related sign and spoken language skills in deaf, hard of hearing and hearing children and young people. The training program was tested twice in seven schools in Germany, Greece, Cyprus and Switzerland and was evaluated scientifically. In addition, training approaches and materials were developed to raise awareness among teachers and other professional groups (including early interventionists, educators, social workers, psychologists). Various implementation strategies were suggested on the basis of the evaluation results. The training program and all information (toolbox) were posted on a website and are, thus, easily accessible (www.protom-education.com). The training program is available free of charge in German – German Sign Language / German-Swiss Sign Language, Greek – Greek Sign Language, English – British Sign Language, Italian – Italian Sign Language and French – French Sign Language.
The ProToM partnership thus, directly, addresses needs in the education of deaf and hard of hearing children:
– Research, including the ProToM study, has proven, that throughout Europe there is an increased risk for deaf and hard of hearing children to lag behind in the development of Theory of Mind and Emotion Understanding and thus to experience limitations in social participation. The reasons for this are difficulty in accessing both spoken and sign language, and the inability of deaf and hard of hearing children to participate in a variety of social interactions in an age-appropriate manner and to acquire the language skills that are closely linked to the development of these social-cognitive skills.
– There is an acute need throughout Europe for teaching materials and approaches that take into account both national spoken and sign languages.
The educational program THE MIND READERS and the teacher training facilitate/support the social inclusion of deaf and hard of hearing people by enhancing the acquisition of social-cognitive, emotional and linguistic key competences. In addition, the professional capacities of the participating hearing, deaf and hard of hearing teachers were strenghthened and schools were supported in dealing with diversity and disadvantages. In addition, the university partners contributed to the development of innovative multilingual school-based practice with spoken and sign languages, tested it scientifically evaluated it and transferred it to different fields of practice.
The goals were jointly achieved in an interdisciplinary partnership of seven special and mainstream schools / guidance centres and four universities or research institutions in Germany, Greece, Cyprus and Switzerland. The transnational cooperation made it possible to test the innovative practice scientifically with a large group of participants: A total of 127 deaf and hard of hearing children and over 30 teachers participated in the two trial phases. The results were disseminated sustainably in Western and Eastern Europe using various dissemination strategies and presented to a broad, European and global audience without barriers at a virtual final conference in June 2021.
THE MIND READERS has a great prospective to be used because the program
– is strictly theory-based and addresses various developmental stages of the Theory of Mind and Emotion Understanding, as well as the precursor skills of spoken and sign language,
– is designed in a modular and culturally diverse way and thus enables differentiated use, taking into account the heterogeneity of deaf and hard of hearing children and adolescents, and can also be used with children without or with other disabilities and special needs,
– was developed in a participatory manner by deaf and hearing researchers and was tested in both special schools and inclusive mainstream schools where hearing and deaf and hard of hearing children are educated,
– all materials and information are freely available in many different spoken and signed languages,
– the training program is designed in such a way that it can be edited by users themselves at any time and can therefore be easily translated into other languages,
– a toolbox has been created which contains comprehensive information and support for implementation as well as barrier-free instructions for families, and
– the participating research institutions have integrated it directly into their teacher training programs and disseminated the results at conferences and in publications.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 364995,24 Eur

Project Coordinator

HUMBOLDT-UNIVERSITAET ZU BERLIN & Country: DE

Project Partners

• United professional special needs junior and senior high school of Evia
• Special Elementary School for the Deaf and Hard- of -Hearing of Argyroupolis
• Bildungs- und Beratungszentrum für Hörgeschädigte Stegen
• Ernst-Adolf-Eschke-Schule
• HAROKOPIO UNIVERSITY
• DIMOTIKO SCHOLEIO LEMESOU 23 – AGIOU SPYRIDONA 2
• MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, CULTURE, SPORT AND YOUTH, CYPRUS