History

Begun in 1964 by Dhun and Dorab Adenwalla, the parents of a deaf child, the Oral School for Deaf Children is a recognized institution and a registered charity. It is managed by the Society for Oral education of the deaf.

The school aims at providing a stimulating experience in a friendly and informal environment through a fevourable student-teacher ratio of 1:5. With English as the medium of instruction, the education provided is board-based, giving every child an opportunity for mental, social and emotional development to the fullest.

The emphasis throughout is on helping the child to acquire linguistic competence through communication that is best suited to his/her need.

The school also aims at finding each child’s area of competence and helps him/her to become a confident, well adjusted person who is able to completely manage the limitations of his/her sensory impairment. The ultimate aim is to develop the child’s resources of normality, which have not been impaired by deafness.

Meeting Deaf Children’s Special education Needs

Some people think of the handicap which deafness imposes solely in relation to speech. A deaf child cannot hear speech or he/she may hear it as a fragmented mosaic of smudged sounds and silences. His/her condition is pitied but not understood. Rather, it is necessary to think of the effects of deafness in relation to every aspect of living today, for we live in a world of sound.

Because deaf children grow up in a silent world, the problem they face is lack of communication and of acquiring knowledge.

Deafness is also the only handicap that is not visible, so no thought is given to it by the casual observer. Having limited means of communications, often the deaf person is treated as a non person, ignored or referred to as dumb.

Early detection of deafness is important for training and education. It is up to the family and teacher’s to talk to the child, answering his/her questions, indicated by gestures or imperfect speech. In other words COMMUNICATING with the child.

It is the teacher’s ingenuity and humor which produces result. Information is to be given by meaningful and purposeful repetition. For example, dramatizing, the play- way method of learning, read and signed language becomes a part of true understanding.

The aim of the special training is not to convert the deaf child into a fictitious version of a hearing child, but into a well adjusted deaf child. So the teachers and family preserve and build up the resources of normality which have not been impaired by deafness.