Hesperian Health Guides
Where Can You Go for Help?
HealthWiki > Disabled Village Children > Chapter 31: Hearing Loss and Communication > Where Can You Go for Help?
- Local people with hearing loss as teachers. Even a small village usually has some people with hearing loss. Probably they will have learned to communicate through signs and gestures. If you ask some of them to become the friends and teachers of a child with hearing loss, and advisers to the family, often they will be glad to do so. They may remember the difficulties and loneliness of their own childhood and want to help provide the understanding and learning opportunities that the child needs.
People with hearing loss can be especially helpful if they have learned the national sign language and can communicate fully with other people with hearing loss. If there is no such person in your village, but there is in a neighboring town, perhaps the child can visit that person.
Adults with hearing loss who have learned to communicate well are often the best teachers of a child with hearing loss and his family.
- Other families of children with hearing loss. If several families of children with hearing loss can come together, share experiences, and learn as a group, this can be a big help. The younger children can learn from older ones, or from adults with hearing loss. Together they can develop a form of communication so that all the children and their families can understand each other.
- The National Association of the Deaf (or other groups, sports clubs, church groups run by people with hearing loss). Most countries have associations of people with hearing loss. These can give you information about the national sign language in your country, and perhaps send books for learning it. They can tell you about training programs for people with hearing loss (government, private, and religious) and can advise which are the best. They may even provide brief training in basic communication skills to a local health worker, teacher, family member, or child with disabilities—with the understanding that they then teach others.
- Special education programs or schools for for people with hearing loss. Many countries have schools where children with hearing loss can live and receive language training. Some of these are good and some are not. Good programs try different methods of communication with each child and then focus on what will probably work best for that child in his community. Bad programs try to make all children with hearing loss communicate only by lip reading or speech. For many children this can lead to failure, anger, and emotional harm. Try to get advice about education programs from local people with hearing loss.
The Hesperian book Helping Children Who Are Deaf has many ideas to help children with hearing loss learn a language and communicate to the fullest of their ability. It will also help parents make good decisions about the development of their child with hearing loss.
This page was updated:25 Nov 2024