The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) together with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Kyrgyzstan supported a programme to improve interaction between educators and children with hearing problems through mobile applications. The initiative took place within the framework of the "Open Innovation Challenge - InnoKG" competition for innovative solutions. 

As part of the project, several mobile applications were developed to teach the alphabet and topics such as "My Family", "Arithmetic" and "My World" to the deaf and mute. It includes several mini-games that allow learning new words in an easy and affordable way. All applications have been developed under the guidance of preschool and school specialists to teach children with hearing impairment.

About 5,000 people (according to the Kyrgyz society for the blind and deaf)  with hearing loss live in Kyrgyzstan, and every year about 100 children are born with hearing loss of varying degrees. They do not know what sounds are and perceive the world differently. The main obstacle of their social adjustment is low level of education, as special preschools and schools for children with hearing loss still use old textbooks and materials. 

To improve the quality of education, specialists, teachers and educators developed didactic materials on their own. Therefore, the application of modern approaches to children's education is very important.  Ai-Perim Abdulazizova, a teacher-defectologist at the social and educational boarding school for deaf children, notes that in children without hearing, the leading analyzer in obtaining information is the optic nerve. 

"The development of vocabulary in a child with hearing loss is something that teachers have been working on since the first day the child enters school, and it is very hard work. The process of making sounds to a deaf child is one of the most important tasks of our school, and here each child needs an individual approach. With the help of modern digital developments in the form of mobile applications and media bubbles, children can easily understand rather complicated things. In addition, the process of repeating and fixing the material becomes very interesting, as the implementation in the form of mini-games helps to increase interest in learning."

                                                                       Ai-Perim Abdulazizova, Methodologist

During the pandemic, teachers faced problems with distance learning and control of students' work as parents living in different parts of Kyrgyzstan had to take their children back home. In addition, the lack of teaching aids at home made the learning process much more difficult.

"In such a period of training, well-coordinated joint work between the teacher and the parent is important. And here digital solutions are very helpful - after all, smartphones and computers can include textbooks and teaching aids, and "animation" of pictures turns boring lessons into an exciting game. In addition, mobile applications and the internet erase boundaries and distances. Despite the remote location of the students, we are already seeing positive results - the children are well acquainted with words of prime necessity related to the objects of the world around them, and the consolidation of the studied material takes place in a relaxed form."

                                                                        Ai-Perim Abdulazizova, Methodologist

The mobile applications were developed by a team of young IT specialists who worked under the guidance of preschool and school specialists to educate children with hearing impairment. The coordinator of the innovation project of Technoland is Rena Sultangazieva, who became the author of the idea of introducing digital solutions in education for children with hearing impairment.