The signing community—which includes around 40,000 Deaf individuals in Italy, along with hearing people who use Italian Sign Language (LIS) for personal or professional reasons—is a vibrant and expressive group. Through poetry, theatre, and cultural events, it has long made its voice heard. That’s why the long-awaited official recognition of LIS by the Italian Parliament in May 2021 was such a meaningful milestone, highlighting a topic that scientific research had already begun to explore in depth since the late 1970s. “From the early work of Virginia Volterra’s research team at the CNR, to the creation in 2021 of the Interuniversity Center for Cognition, Language and Deafness in Catania—which brings together the universities of Catania, Milano-Bicocca, Palermo, Trento, and Ca’ Foscari Venice—scientific progress and inclusive practices have steadily advanced,” explains Professor Anna Cardinaletti, a leading figure in the field and the founder of the Deaf Studies program launched at Ca’ Foscari more than 20 years ago.
The center—which brings together linguists, neuroscientists, educators, and sociologists in an interdisciplinary exchange—aims to foster both training and research around LIS and deafness. This work is vital not only to help individuals and families navigate daily life, but also to integrate these issues into schools, workplaces, healthcare systems, and all spheres of social life. “One of our key challenges is to support Deaf individuals in accessing university and academic pathways,” Cardinaletti continues. “But that starts with accessible education from early childhood, including LIS interpreters and specialized educators.”
In Italy, unfortunately, bilingual education experiences remain extremely rare. In fact, it has often been the universities themselves that led the way—both to ensure equal rights for Deaf students and to promote the teaching of LIS. The University of Catania, for example, introduced LIS as a three-year language course in its BA program in Language and Intercultural Mediation in 2015, while Ca’ Foscari in Venice had already included it as a specialization option starting in the 2001/2002 academic year. Since then, more than 1,100 students have been trained at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Many of them not only studied the language and culture of the Italian Deaf community, but also explored language acquisition in this unique context. “Today, many of these students are LIS teachers or interpreters,” Cardinaletti notes, “thanks to specialized training that, in line with EU guidelines, now includes a Master’s degree in Interpretation.”
Former students have shown remarkable initiative in applying their education: some graduates recently launched Veasyt, a digital spin-off company offering communication accessibility services, such as accessible video-audio guides and remote LIS interpretation. Others, all women, founded an association called Lisabilità, which uses LIS to support hearing children with communication disorders such as autism, Down syndrome, and developmental apraxia—children for whom vocal language is temporarily or permanently inaccessible.
“Spreading awareness of the enormous potential of LIS—still underrecognized and underused—through collaborations with organizations like Casa delle Luci in Rome is a responsibility we take seriously,” Cardinaletti emphasizes. “At Ca’ Foscari, we see ourselves as ambassadors of LIS, not only in Italy but internationally.” She points out that both Deaf students and children of Deaf adults are now enrolling in LIS programs. The road to full accessibility in higher education for students with hearing disabilities is complex.
However, it’s important to recognize that these students were among the first to complete their full academic path in their own language—and they’re likely to become the next generation of researchers. “We’re proud to have hired two native LIS signers as language experts—the first in Italy to teach their own language at the university level,” says Cardinaletti. “They even contributed to the development of the first official LIS grammar, published open-access by Edizioni Ca’ Foscari.” The University of Catania has recently followed suit, hiring its first Deaf native signer as a linguistics expert. In partnership with Lega del Filo d’Oro, Ca’ Foscari has also reached a milestone: offering a tactile LIS course and promoting socio-haptic communication in Italy.
Now that LIS has been recognized, institutions must follow up with concrete commitments to complete this long-overdue shift in perspective. “All professionals working with LIS and the Deaf community—interpreters, linguistic and cultural mediators, communication assistants, teachers, and special education staff—must be guaranteed high-quality university-level training that meets international standards,” stresses Cardinaletti. “Just as it is for professionals in spoken languages, and just as it already happens in many other countries.” Full recognition of the language and its community requires equal status, both formally and substantively, for LIS professionals and those working with spoken languages. Any alternative approach risks undermining the hard-won recognition of LIS and reinforcing a welfare-based view of deafness—a step backward we cannot afford to take.
