AURALLY OR ACOUSTICALLY HANDICAPPED CHILDERS
Aurally
handicapped children are those who have difficulty in hearing either one or
both ears or have no power of hearing at all. Such individuals lack the sense
of hearing wholly or in part. Generally they are known as deaf.
An individual with hearing impairment
its one who has a hearing loss of 70 db or greater and who is unable to
understand speech through the ear alone, with or without the use of a hearing
aid. People who are deaf can be categorized into two groups: congenitally deaf and
adventitiously deaf
Cause of hearing impairment
1.
Genetic defects: Hereditary factors may sometimes cause hearing impairment. It
may be present at birth or develop later in life.
2. Prenatal
causes: Maternal malnutrition and unhealthy living conditions during pregnancy,
overdose of strong drugs like streptomycin, quinine and LSD are associated with
hearing impairment.
3. Pernatal
causes: Full time delivery followed by anoxia problems use of forceps in
delivery, instrumental delivery, premature delivery, use of anesthetic agents
in delivery etc. cause hearing impairment.
4.
Postnatal causes: Brain tumour, whooping cough, typhoid fever, encephalitis,
mumps are post natal causes of hearing impairment.
5.
Psychological causes: Include emotional depression and trauma.
6.
Accidents, severe burns, toxic drugs, surgical errors etc.
Educational provisions
1. Use of
hearing aid: Auditory training should be given to hearing impaired children
with the help of wearable hearing aids selected according to the degree loss of
the individual.
2. Speech
reading: It is an art of understanding a speaker without hearing, just by
watching the movements of lips and tongue and other facial expression. Hearing
impaired children could perceive speech if they are trained in lip reading and sign
language also.
3. Vocational
training: residential vocational schools with specially trained teachers to
teach normal curriculum as well as vocational subjects will equip impaired children
to face the challenges of future life.
4. Preschool
education: It is required to enhance the self-confidence and moreover, it
invites a clear-cut avenue for the child’s successful integration into regular
class.
5. Classroom
arrangements: The seating arrangement in the classroom should be done such a
way that the hearing-impaired children become frontbenchers. The teacher may
use a reasonable level of pitch while speaking. To supplement the general
teaching input, visual aids may also be used.
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