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A new lease of life

DISABILITY: Deafness is a disability that can easily be corrected with modern technology the therapy techniques. Almost all deaf children have residual hearing, which can be utilized by using proper hearing aids and with proper guidance.

My grandson Narada who developed a profound hearing loss at the age of two, had the good fortune of entering a regular Primary School at the correct school going age, where he studied with more than forty five hearing kids in the class room.

This was due to the fact that we were able to train him using Auditory Verbal Therapy techniques and also through Total Communication methods. Now he is grade ten in a leading Colombo School learning along with his hearing peers. He is a bright student who engages in co-curricular activities.

He also learns to play the violin and plays it well. I had the opportunity to study Auditory Verbal Therapy Techniques and also Total Communication methods in Canada, which enabled me to guide Narada.

With correct Hearing Aids, the performance of which had to be regularly checked, and with personalized Ear Molds which do not give feed back interference, a child can be trained to listen and thus hear, speak and learn language. (Feed back is the high pitch whistle produced by the amplified sound escaping to the microphone due to ill fitting ear molds.) A child who has a mild to severe hearing loss can acquire speech and language through Auditory Verbal Therapy, if proper hearing aids are used.

In Sri Lanka this is not possible due to the fact that very few children are able to have expensive hearing aids or regular check ups. Most of our children cannot even afford the cumbersome Body Hearing Aids. Even an analogue behind the Ear Hearing Aid can be bought only by a few parents.

A digital Behind the Ear Hearing Aid is a far cry. Teaching such children has to be through Total Communication methods where lip reading and other articulatory methods are used.

Today in most countries, even in the developing ones, Cochlear Implant surgery has come to stay, as the best method to give hearing, specially to children with profound hearing losses. My own experience is that a child with a Cochlear implant learns to speak within six months to one year, with proper post surgery training which involves the Auditory Verbal Therapist and the parent.

In Canada, deaf and hard of hearing children are afforded Cochlear implants free of charge by their Government. It is done on the principle that the manpower necessary to train a deaf child decreases immensely and that it is cost effective,though the surgery itself is costly.

In September this year I attended a conference organized by 'The Cochlear Implant Group of India'.

The conference revealed the activities they perform towards the betterment of the deaf and the hard of hearing people, not only children. It is fantastic work. I watched video clips on how the Cochlear implant is performed on various persons even with various abnormalities in the ear.

The conference ended with a fluent speech given by a six-year-old boy who has had an implant. I also visited an Auditory Verbal Therapy Center to gain knowledge. In India the surgery costs about six lakhs of Indian Rupees.

For the short period that this implant has come to be in India, parents have realized its value. There are organizations that fund poor patients. Even in countries like Taiwan and Singapore Cochlear implants have become very common.

In Sri Lanka, the deaf and the hard of hearing people are a neglected lot. It is sad to see that still there are programmes to improve the Sign Language. In most countries this is referred to as 'Teaching the Deaf to be Deaf'. There are no programmes to educate the parents of deaf children, specially in the rural areas.

Even if parents of lower income groups obtain hearing aids from the Social Services, they are at a loss as to how the aids operate. One parent had thrown away the aid as she found that the child cannot hear with it. She did not know that aids operate with batteries. This is due to the lack of Audiology Clinics in the rural areas.

As a grandmother who has trained a grandson and who has seen the pathos of parents with deaf children, I have been able to start a non profit making Foundation (Narada Savana (Hear Foundation) with the dream of establishing an Audiological Clinic with all the modern facilities and qualified personnel to help the deaf and hard of children initially in the Gampaha district - that has been found to have the largest number of deaf persons, according to the last census.

The early intervention pre school conducted by the Foundation has shown good results. We are awaiting internaitonal help.

Any person living here in Sri Lanka or abroad, (or any organization) who is willing to join us in this venture, please contact the Foundation.

This article is also written to create awareness among parents, and mostly among the Authorities that have the power to look into the welfare of this neglected lot, and initiate programmes, as founded in other countries, so that the deaf and the hard of hearing children would become useful and productive citizens, for without proper help, they would be non productive to themselves and the country.

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Gamin Gamata - Presidential Community & Welfare Service
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