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Friday, May 25, 2012

'More volunteers needed to support deaf children'

BY LUKE DOUGLAS Career & Education writer editorial@jamaicaobserver.com
Sunday, March 07, 2010

THE deaf community needs more volunteer support from churches, community groups and service clubs to assist families of deaf children to overcome the stigma of the disability and achieve their full learning potential.

Iris Soutar, executive director of the Jamaica Association for the Deaf (JAD), says the need for community support is greater than its need for equipment to help the association carry out its mandate of improving the educational, industrial and social conditions of deaf and hard of hearing people in Jamaica.

"Our programmes require people power. We are asking churches to offer space. We are asking persons to support families for deaf children so they can deal with this challenge," Soutar told Career & Education.

Unfortunately, the stigma of having a deaf child still persists in Jamaica, 72 years after the JAD's formation in 1938. The association operates eight of the country's 13 special schools for the deaf.

"The greatest barrier is attitude, starting with the attitude of the family. We have clinics where, when fathers find out their child is deaf they literally walk out. They don't believe they could have produced a deaf child," said Soutar.

She said following the detection of 4,000 children with hearing problems through screening, only 25 per cent of families sent their children to a free special clinic for further assessment and intervention.

Attitudinal problems aside, the JAD faces an immediate problem as its diagnostic centre on Leinster Road in Cross Roads was broken into last Tuesday and two pieces of equipment, valued at US$12,000 each, were stolen.

The special equipment look like laptops, but are actually used for testing the hearing levels of babies.

"Here it is that we are trying to help people regardless of whether the person has money or not, and someone comes and steals the equipment," a distraught Soutar said. "If someone takes them some place and leaves it anonymously, we would appreciate it much because we would love to get them back."

As deaf persons are recognised as visual learners, more visual media such as computers, multimedia equipment manipulatable toys, puzzles, and charts are also needed to maximise their learning capacity.

It is conservatively estimated that there are about 27,000 people in Jamaica who are deaf or who are hard of hearing, using the formula that between one to two per cent of a community are estimated to have a hearing problem, whether they are born deaf to those who acquire deafness in their lifetime.