Prepares children for regular schools, offers courses to special teachers and parents.
In an age when a pre-primary school for the hearing impaired is still a rare concept, Cochlea Pune, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) working in the field, has been successfully running Swarnaad, a school for children of 0-6 years. The school reopened for its third year on June 15.
The children in this school are not only prepared for integration with regular schools, but are also trained in language and speech. On attaining six years of age they are admitted to standard I of regular schools for integrated education. Every
class has two teachers for four children.
Chief managing trustee of Cochlea Pune, Dr AM Wachasunder, said, “While serving as an ear specialist, I realised that it is important that these hearing impaired children need training from early age, right from early months. In the absence of a pre-primary school for such children, they are not prepared for primary school and continue lagging behind. We therefore started Swarnaad where children are taught in three groups.”
Children in the year 0 to 1 are in the stage of early intervention. Various therapies are applied to tackle the problem of deafness, aid fitting is done and the parents are taught to observe and take care of the child.
Children between 1 and 3 years and their parents undergo parents-infants programme. “The child generally starts babbling by this time, but since it cannot hear, it has to be trained in a different way to speak. So the child and parents too are trained by special teachers,” said principal of Swarnaad, Raksha Deshpande.
Between 3 and 6 years, communication skills are developed and the children are prepared for primary school. “We have started this school particularly with the low income group in view. These parents are not much educated and do not know how to train the child before admitting him or her to school. The options available are not affordable to them,” said Dr Wachasunder.
Many of the students from Swarnaad are now going to regular schools. Cochlea intends to spread out in talukas around Pune. It already has branches in Pimpri-Chinchwad and other areas.
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