It’s official – Ireland’s young people are risking their hearing by turning up the volume of iPods or personal radios, especially on public transport. The 82 per cent of 15 to 24 year-olds in Ireland who wear earphones regularly, have been warned that they may suffer premature hearing loss. The inconvenience of noise-induced hearing loss
Soon after learning to drive as a 17-year-old, I realised its value to my social life. After-school phone chats to friends weren’t an option, so the family car would be borrowed for evening visits. Near-misses while negotiating friends’ dark driveways were carefully logged in my experience as episodes not to repeat. Parking outside new social
A few parents have asked how their deaf child can be more independent. In fact, deaf children can be educators here! These ideas will get you started. Young children: * Let them do things for themselves and don’t spoon-feed them * Arrange play-dates with local children and/or go to a toddler group * Enroll in local
Stagetext, a captioning service for theatre-goers, debuts to Irish audiences this month at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. This service, which in 2008 will expand across Ireland, was devised in 2000 in the UK by three deaf theatre fans who were frustrated at missing out on the performing arts. Personally, I’m looking forward to seeing The
Digital photos have massive potential in developing the reading and writing skills of children with special needs. For deaf children specifically, new words can be taught by connecting the word to a digital picture. Phonetics challenge many special-needs children, but words can be better understood when connected to pictures. Journals, storybooks, newsletters, flash cards are
Deaf children who can explain their communication needs to others from early on, will have an easier life. Parents need to give their child the self-confidence to do this, maybe through practice or role-play. Once the child knows to tell people how they hear and communicate when they first meet (you can do this together),
Research constantly shows children educated in an inclusive environment from the outset, to be more accepting of differences. Deaf children benefit from inclusion, even when play is still the main mode of social interaction. At my mainstream preschool, I remember linking hands tightly in solidarity with one or two particular hearing classmates (still friends today,
Deafness isn’t the tragedy that it was, at one time. With sustained early intervention and hearing-devices from birth to age three, a baby or child who is deaf achieves a good quality of life with their own personal milestones. However, if deafness is diagnosed at a late stage (after the child is 2.5 years of
Speech is a priceless gift. Especially when it has to be acquired through intensive speech therapy, language lessons and hours of pronunciation practice. Babies with a hearing impairment aren’t able to absorb and replicate the speech heard in their environment, as their hearing peers do. Help is needed, but the huge effort is rewarded with
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