The Challenges of Deafness and Communication Difficulties Among Special Needs Students

 

The term special needs include various learning, physical, medical, behavior, mental health, and developmental disabilities which differentiates them from general students. They face hindrances in learning, their studies, and mobility. They are referred to as “Divyang” in India, a Hindi word for the one with a divine body part. They have special needs in order to learn and be on par with their counterpart students. 

Hearing is vital for the development of communication skills among young children. Hence it becomes crucial for early detection of deafness among children lest delayed development of speech. Hence, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends screening newborn babies for hearing impairment.

If detected early, treatment can be started to prevent delays in communication and language skills, says the CDC. Decibel is unit for the loudness of voice, so children with more than 90 decibels hearing loss are considered deaf. Hearing loss or deafness could be either acquired by any illness or congenital due to genetics. 

However, hearing impairment or deafness does not mean that child has any intellectual complications. simply these don’t affect a person’s ability to learn. But they do require special education which includes auditory training from specialists, sign language interpreters, lip reading, captioned videos, basically, education is imparted with the help of alternative communication methods. 

Nonetheless, such students find it arduous to learn verbal communication, vocabulary, grammar idioms and expressions. In order to counter such delays, visible communication methods or manual communication such as sign language, lip-reading, fingerspelling, and oral amplification training are implied. 

Though it is an obvious fact that children with hearing loss have better chances of getting quality education in developed countries than in developing or underdeveloped countries. They encounter challenges of unsupportive attitude, societal stigmas and myths h, inadequate specialized teachers for auditory training, learning resources and assistive devices, and paucity of funds by the governments.

According to data of the World Federation of the Deaf (2020), almost 80 percent of people with hearing disabilities reside in developing countries. This further necessitates actions for imparting education and direct funds to poor countries. Moreover, a 2019 UN report highlighted the fact that disabled students were less likely to access education, possess basic skills, complete schools, and had lesser opportunities.

The main reasons for this disparity were lack of specialized teachers, negative attitudes, discrimination, prejudices in society, less research on devising innovative methods for special educational requirements. Harassment, bullying and abuse by fellow students have led to an increase in school dropout’s parents being protective of their disabled children. 

In the contemporary context, the Covid 19 pandemic has been detrimental to the development of hearing-impaired students. A study published in the Malaysian Journal of Social Sciences and      

Humanities (MJSSH) shows that “there were four major challenges faced by the hearing impairment students; hearing devices, disruption to comprehend the lesson, not being familiar with the online devices, and being emotionally affected during online classes”. The study further revealed that “the hearing impairment students hampered their social interactions skills towards others during the pandemic”. Thus, it is imperative to improve and innovate methodologies by further research to assist special-needs students proving them “disability is not an inability” in 21st century.

 

References 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2013). Hearing loss in children. Available online at: http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/hearingloss/about.html

World Federation of the Deaf. (2020) on Wikipedia the free encyclopedia. Retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Federation_of_the_Deaf. UN. (2019). United Nations disability and development Report

https://www.un.org/development/desa/dspd/2019/04/un-disability-and-development-report-realizing-the-sdgs-byfor-and-with-persons-with-disabilities/. Malaysian Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities (MJSSH), Volume 5, Issue 8.