SCFA launched a special initiative concerning supportive services and accessibility opportunities for persons with disability including the hard of hearing group. The initiative
is embodied by including the sign language course in the special education diploma program in the University of Qatar because sign language is considered the primary language of communication among the deaf and those who work with them, as well as it is the most successful means to achieve contact among the deaf. The initiative aims at assisting the future teacher in facilitating delivering information to the deaf at school, rehabilitating and improving the staff working in the hard of hearing sphere and raising the academic and intellectual level among the deaf through transmitting information by the specialized teacher. This initiative also aims at rehabilitating students majoring in special education to learn sign language and use it as a communicative language in the teaching process, as well as to include sign language as a pre-requisite course for special education diploma students and train these students in the rules of communication with the deaf group, promoting sign language and expanding the space of those who know how to use it in order to achieve inclusion and interaction with community members and to raise the deaf's educational level and make them reach the university stage

On this occasion, HE Mr. Abdullah bin Nasser Al-Khalifa, SCFA Secretary-General stated that this initiative had been preceded by a number of initiatives in general terms concerning persons with other disabilities. HE confirmed that sign language is considered a bridge to transport science and knowledge, and therefore, it was necessary that the special education teacher should be proficient in this language which has become an accredited language on the global level and acknowledged by the entire international conventions on this matter. HE mentioned that SCFA undertook full supervision of accomplishing and documenting the standardized Arabic sign language through holding workshops, publishing the two-volume standardized Arabic Sign Language Dictionary which is the first dictionary of its kind on the Arabic level

HE pointed out that hearing disability is one of the most difficult disabilities for those who have it because it impedes them from communicating with the community, and hence this initiative in collaboration with University of Qatar to include sign language as a pre-requisite subject in the program studied by the students, and this was actually implemented as from commencement of the current academic year

HE, on behalf of SCFA, expressed his appreciation to University of Qatar for its distinguished cooperation and for its prompt response to this initiative, and he called upon using sign language in the optional courses for all university students and in all specializations like the rest of the optional languages taught in the University

HE indicated that the initiative's second phase would be taught in public schools as coordination in this sphere is on-going with the Ministry of Education. It suffices to say that the syllabus contains sign terminology, sign language grammar, methodology of using sign language including body language which consists of gestures, facial expressions, mimicry, hand shaping, movement, alphabet, direction, Arabic and English sings, numbers and figures, and employing sign language in the class and methods and styles of communication with the hard of hearing, as well as interpretation and translation, analysis, formulation, sending and receiving, concentrating, storing speech and sound, literatures, ethics, signs formation and their differences and the ways of explaining vocabulary that has no signs and the deaf's language culture, and the deaf`s mental images and their impact on language learning and linguistic enrichment, and how to develop and form vocabulary and construct long sentences, in addition to studying the deaf's cultural and social status and the intellectual, emotional and social impacts on the deaf and how to reach high efficiency and realize self-development