Application for Iraqi sign language translation on Android system

Abstract

Deaf people suffer from difficulty in social communication, especially those who have been denied the blessing of hearing before the acquisition of spoken language and before learning to read and write. For the purpose of employing mobile devices for the benefit of these people, their teachers and everyone who has contact with them, this research aims to design an application for social communication and learning by translating Iraqi sign language into text in Arabic and vice versa. Iraqi sign language has been chosen because of a lack of applications for this field. The current research, to the best of our knowledge, is the first of its kind in Iraq. The application is open source; words that are not found in the application database can be processed by translating them into letters alphabetically. The importance of the application lies in the fact that it is a means of communication and e-learning through Iraqi sign language, reading and writing in Arabic. Similarly, it is regarded as a means of social communication between deaf people and those with normal hearing. This application is designed by using JAVA language and it was tested on several deaf students at Al-Amal Institute for Special Needs Care in Mosul, Iraq. It was well comprehended and accepted.