Teaching parents to identify and deal with deaf & mute children

Sri Ganapathi Sachchidananda Vagdevi Integrated School will organise a seminar to spread awareness about facilities available for deaf and mute children. YM Reddy/iamin

12.12.2015, Sri Ganapathi Sachchidananda Vagdevi Integrated School plans to organise two-day seminar for the benefit of deaf and mute and create awareness among the public about the various facilities and methods available for the benefit parents of deaf and mute children. The seminar will be conducted on January 2 and 3.

Speaking to iamin, Dr Shantha Radha Krishna, director of the school said that the objective of the seminar is to bring eminent speakers from various cities to explain the methods and facilities available for the benefit of deaf and mute children. "The seminar will cover subjects such as the status of infant screening in India, present scenario in the area of counselling parents of children and referral, early intervention and challenges in manpower development among others,'' Dr Krishna said.

According to her, there would be two sessions each day during the seminar. "We also plan to felicitate Saraswathi Narayanaswamy who is the founder of Balavidyalaya in Chennai on the occasion,'' Dr Krishna added.

Elaborating on the facilities available at Sri Ganapathi Sachchidananda Vagdevi Centre, Girinagar, Krishna said that around 70 students are being educated at the Girinagar centre. "The centre addresses issues of people with communication impairment such as hearing impairment, learning disability, autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, cerebral palsy etc. Our mission is to create awareness about communication impairment through public education and multi-media, early diagnosis and mass screening.''

Mother-infant stimulation program
The school has a parent centered approach which seeks to develop spoken language through a structured programme based on highly enhanced auditory and language input. The parent stimulator helps parents to carry out programmes, speech language stimulation with their children. "Mothers can come along with their infants to our centre. We provide training free of cost but they have to make arrangements for boarding and lodging on their own. It will be a three-month programme and it will be a great help for the parents of hearing impaired children,'' Dr Krishna said.

She said that there are no facilities in the country to screen the infants (within three months of birth) for hearing impairment. While such facilities are available in other countries Dr Krishna wants them in India too.