This week world celebrates 'Deaf Awareness Week' as it is observed in the last week of September every year. But this time, the students of this community are facing very hard time during this Covid Pandemic. Currently, the whole world is battling with coronavirus and most of the people are working from their home.

Not only offices even schools, colleges and institutes are shut from last 5 to 6 months across the globe. They have adopted a new learning method that is online learning to continue the learning process of students. But for the blind and deaf students, it is very difficult to cope up with this new way of learning.

There are thousands of deaf individuals who are unable to accept online media and education class due to lack off either sign language interpreter or weak internet connections that disrupts the flow of interpretation. Some of them are not much aware about the latest technologies and many students did not know how to use Gmail and zoom. So, they need step by step instructions in order to learn how to use these applications.


Earlier, before Covid outbreak, the primary mode of education for deaf and blind students was tactile, that means the use to learn by touching and exploring objects. As deaf-blindness is a state of losing two senses, their learning abilities are affected due to limited vision and hearing. So, for such students, tactile communication models are used while learning for the better understanding, which is possible only by face to face interaction.

Source: wikipedia

There are many students with deaf-blindness disability who cannot go to schools as they have completely lost their sense of hearing or seeing. They require special educator who used to teach them at home. But now this is also affected by various factors like now these special educators cannot visit their homes in order to teach them and many cannot afford smartphones due to poor economic condition of their families.

The online platform has its own limitations and the communication barrier caused during online learning becomes very frustrating for the students of these communities. This causes high amount of stress and anxiety for the students. There are many parents who don't know proper sign language which makes it more difficult for the students during this isolation as they can't be understood properly.

The global deaf community is mainly divided into three groups hard of hearing, deaf and deaf blind. As they celebrate deaf awareness week, no one is concerned about their difficulties and losses during these difficult times. They are left unheard and unnoticed.


Source: wikipedia


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