Across the globe, the 'International Day of the Deaf' is observed by the International Federation of the Deaf and the UN agencies on the last Sunday of September, This year, amid the COVID crisis, the observance fell on September 27. Earlier, I used to visit READS-NGO in Jaipur to watch the performance of children with speech and hearing impairment around the observance to collect some visual data.
Sign, facial and body languages have evolved quiet a lot in the last three decades. In India, Indian Sign Language for education of hearing impaired has been standardized but has not been institutionalized even in most special schools and inclusive schools.
Across the globe, there are about 3000 tongues, but the language development among all children begins with the urge to communicate through gestures during their baby and infant stages. Thus, gesturing and signing are the most significant communication development stage of children. But, this development stage is being ignored both by parents and teachers of early education centres leading to language development deficit among children.
Furthermore,the third edition a gesture dictionary has 1500 gestures used by kids and hearing impaired incidentally without any formal training. Simon Carmel has authored a book titled ‘International Manual Alphabet of the Deaf” describing 43 dactylic alphabet of various countries worldwide. But, teachers hardly refer to the book for classroom communication.
Here, I quote from my earlier article in Meri News titled "Treat gesturing and signing as first communication and language development milestone in early childhood to prevent learning disabilities: Study" which goes as follows.
"Gesturing and signing are innate potentials of children to communicate and formal communications through other modes such as visual and language codes should be found on them through a structured learning experience in an institution for effective cognitive development. Both parents and teachers should learn at least 30 gestures to communicate with their children to meet the first communication developmental milestone of parents," said lead researcher in disability education, Dr Lalit Kishore, at Disha Foundation in Jaipur.
Link for further reading of my article"
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