To build and support positive and valuable extracurricular activities for oral deaf and hard of hearing children and their siblings, designed to develop peer and mentoring relationships.
Studies have shown that children with special needs are happier and perform better once their positive self-esteem is in tact and when shared with those who support and understand their special needs. Thus, building benefits for the individual, family and community to produce happier, better educated and independent individuals.
For years, parents of deaf and hard of hearing children have been met with the restrictive assumption that deaf and hard of hearing people can only expect to obtain an education equivalent to fourth grade. Having been told this by “professionals,” many parents have not expected more from their deaf or hard of hearing child.
It has been documented that children whose hearing impairment goes undetected and untreated to the age of 3 years old earn up to $800,000 less in the course of their lifetime due to delays in language acquisition and resulting in depressed language skills.
The statistics alone should be enough to draw concern for the 28 million people in the United States who suffer from some form of hearing loss. Granted, this 28 million includes age related hearing loss as well as those born deaf or hard of hearing and those deafened by illness or accident.
Additionally, we know that every 1 in 22 children are born with or soon develop a hearing loss of some degree. If we are not educating and supporting these children emotionally and motivating this group of children, we are wasting a large amount of federal and state funds. More importantly, we are wasting our children due to the public, professionals and educators simply being uninformed.
Helen Keller, without a doubt, a positive role model in the deaf and blind community, surpassed limits placed on a deaf and blind person. She considered her deafness more devastating than blindness because deafness isolated her from people rather than things…