Parents’ meeting at Guwahati VAANI office
“I feel that I wasted a lot of time attempting to make my son speak
unsuccessfully. Only after my interaction with VAANI have I realised
that communication is more important in the development of language
than speaking” - this is what one of the parents, Sangita Doloi, had to say at a sensitisation meeting on 21 August 2009 at the VAANI office at Guwahati. The group of parents had come together to share experiences and notes on how to be a support to their deaf children.
The parents discussed the importance of:
• understanding the emotional and social needs of their children
• including their deaf children in all the activities within the family,thus preventing them from isolation which is a general tendency of the deaf children.
• encouraging their children to communicate by any means that they were comfortable with.
• learning the language of their children. Sangita Doloi felt it was easier for hearing people to learn Sign Language than forcing their children to learn to speak. She mentioned how much her son benefited from the training she had with the TLM (teaching and learning material) Kit.