On the face of it,
hearing impairment may sound like a disability that can be easily dismissed.
Take a closer look and the statistics are staggering. Over 360 million people
in the world suffer from disabling hearing loss and the impairment among
children is increasing at around 60%. Simply put, 5.3% of the world population
has disabling hearing loss of which 32 million are children, according to WHO
estimates.
In India alone, 63
million people suffer from significant auditory loss and that includes around
50 lakh children. Surveys have estimated hearing loss to be the third leading
cause of chronic disability, following arthritis and hypertension.
World Hearing Day is held
on March 3 each year to raise awareness on how to prevent deafness
and hearing loss and to emphasize on ear and hearing care the world over. This
year, with the theme 'Hear the future', World Hearing Day draws attention to
the anticipated increase of people with hearing loss in the coming decades and
preventive strategies to stem the rise and ensure rehabilitation services and
communication tools are in place. This makes the relevance of World
Hearing Day the need of the hour.
"In most cases,
children who struggle to hear can be helped with the correct hearing aid. We
need to understand that hearing disability can be a nowned speech impediment
resulting in the child being a socially isolated underachiever, something that
can be prevented/controlled", says Audiologist, Speech therapist and
Author Devangi Dalal, the recipient of Humanitarian Award from the American
Academy of Audiology (AAA).
Dalal has dedicated her
career to improving the quality of life of hearing impaired children of India for
the last two and a half decades, and also provides free hearing services that
is new digital hearing aids to hearing impaired children, enabling them to
speak and attend normal schools. Dalal believes that "a hearing handicap
is no longer a handicap", and is currently working at providing hearing
impaired children in India the same privileges as the hearing impaired children
in Europe and the United States through her foundation, Juvenile Organisation
of Speech and Hearing (JOSH), whose purpose is to educate and empower hearing
impaired children.
"Through JOSH, we
organise programmes to empower the children, be it entertainment programmes
were they perform to music, or self development or counseling sessions. We also
personally fit children with hearing devices free of cost enabling them to lead
normal lives. So far, over 750 children have benefited but there is a need to
bring about a movement that will be a road map to independence for children
with hearing impairment.”
Dalal points out that
there is a need to create awareness in society about early detection of hearing
disability and usage of proper hearing aids as hearing impaired children can
then be integrated into normal schools.
“Proper neo-natal
screening equipment need to be in place,” she adds, stating that there is a
need to educate and counsel parents and children and provide the latest
technology available to them.
“We also need to work on
educational and job opportunities of the hearing impaired. It is then that the
children will speak and not use gestural language for communication as if only
they could hear with proper diagnosis, proper digital hearing and proper
rehabilitation, they are as normal as any of their compatriots. Every
successful child fitted with the right hearing devices is a step in that
direction", urges Dalal asking each citizen to join her in this mission by
lending their ears this World Hearing Day, and be the change.
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Audiologist & Speech Therapist Devangi Dalal with kids
at the JOSH Foundation's inter-school dance competition for the hearing
impaired
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Poonam Pandey, Kunickaa Sadanand, Ali Asgar and Devangi
Dalal with children at the JOSH Foundation's inter-school dance competition for
the hearing impaired
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