Educational resources for people with vision and hearing impairments

8 July 2013

As part of its initiatives to promote financial education, the Bank of Italy - with the help of the Ente Nazionale Sordi and the Unione Italiana Ciechi - has prepared some video and audio materials on the subject of money, its history and its functions, and on non-cash payment instruments, specifically for people with vision and hearing impairments.

The video and audio files can be accessed from the Bank of Italy website. The videos (currently seven short films) feature interpreters using Italian Sign Language (LIS) while the audio files for people with vision impairments provide the "speaking book" version of the booklet on the same subject prepared for use in high schools as part of the project currently under way sponsored by the Ministry of Education.

The "speaking book" can be used by anyone who, for whatever reason, has reading difficulties. Another version of the "speaking book" for partially-sighted people will soon be published.

This initiative, the first of its kind in Italy, is aimed not only at meeting the needs of young people of school-going age with vision and hearing disabilities, but also at the wider community of blind and deaf people who, particularly as regards banking, finance and economics, require specially designed resources.