BalavidyalayaSchool for Young Deaf Children Organised an International Conference on Parenting Deaf and Hard Of Hearing Children

Balavidyalaya the School for Young Deaf Children organized a two-day International Conference on Parenting Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children. The conference was inaugurated by Dr.Suni Mathew, Director, Ali Yavar Jung National Institute of Speech & Hearing Disabilities, Mumbai in the august presence of Dr.Christine Yoshinaga Itano, Research Professor, Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Colorado, USA and Dr. Ratna, Former Director, AIISH, Mysore & AYJNISHD, Mumbai

The conference is to bring together policy makers, special educators, speech therapists, audiologists, doctors, psychologists, social workers engaged in the field of deafness and parents of children with hearing difficulty.
Hearing loss is the most common birth defect. India is one of the largest country with 1.37 billion population and more than 100,000 babies are born with hearing deficiency every year. Four out of every thousand Indian children live with severe to profound hearing loss. Studies have shown that Early Intervention for Children Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing is the key point for achievement of age-appropriate speech perception and language development in hearing-impaired children.

Speaking about the conference Ms. Saraswathi Narayanaswamy, Honorary Director, Balavidyalaya School for Young Deaf Children said “Early identification of deafness, combined with effective early intervention, offers the best chance of the language, communication, and speech abilities of deaf children developing in line with the developmental pattern and time frame for hearing children. Effective support for families empowers parents to make informed decisions and take positive action on behalf of their child before language and communication deficit becomes established.”  
ABOUT BALAVIDYALAYA:Balavidyalaya believes that it is the birth right of deaf and hard of hearing children to become part of the mainstream society through learning to speak like most children. The school admits infants and young children less than 3 years, focuses on developing oral language skills in them using DHVANI Methodology and integrates them into mainstream schools when they are 5 years old. The school has to its credit more than 1200 alumni students in the mainstream in all walks of life.