BENGALURU: With English being used widely as medium of instruction in regular schools, educators and parents of hearing impaired students too want a switch to a bilingual medium of instruction for visual-based learning (for instance lip reading). It is crucial for students to have a base in one language to know the structure, and it is often the mother tongue, which the student is exposed to at home, according to experts.
The pros and cons of introducing more than one language for hearing impaired students were weighed in by parents and educators at a seminar -- bilingualism - challenges in deaf education -- organised by SGS Vagdevi Centre for Rehabilitation of Communication Impaired on Thursday.
Unlike their able bodied peers, such students are limited to learning one language at a time because learning more languages simultaneously would confuse them, said experts. “Hence, at the Early Infant Stimulation Centre, children are admitted at two years of age, and are taught to communicate in Kannada for three years. Once the student is proficient in the language, they can start learning the next language,” said Dr Shantha Radhakrishna, director of SGS Vagadevi Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Communication Impaired. The institute is looking to introduce spoken English six months prior to students joining regular schools by involving their mothers in training process.
Dr Shantha, who is also a professional audiologist, said, dwindling number of vernacular (Kannada) medium schools does not make a strong case for continuing to teach them only Kannada.For Uma (name changed), a parent who moved to Bengaluru from West Bengal, teaching her daughter the basics of language in English is much easier as it is spoken at home. “After getting the basics right, we together learnt Kannada, and now I too can speak it,” she said.