PANAJI
Caritas Goa organised a two-day training for parents of children and young adults with deafblindness, to help them work closely and make their children function independently with their existing abilities.
A total of 80 parents from across the State attended the training to gain knowledge and hands-on experience from experts working in the field of deafblindness.
The training commenced with an introductory session on Deafblindness, its causes, onset, and signs to be noticed in children with hearing and vision impairment.
The special educators trained the parents on different teaching strategies to effectively engage with their children.
As nearly 95% of information received is through the sense of sight and hearing, the training was conducted for parents to enable them to learn and understand everything about sensory stimulation.
Since communication is severely affected among these children, training on different modes of communication was given to the parents.
Parents were also engaged in activity-based sessions on learning the different modes of communication, expressive, receptive, verbal, and non-verbal.
The parents not only receive information but also got practical experience of how to communicate and make the child express her/his needs.
Besides, parents were taught words used for daily living activities in sign language to communicate with their children.
A physiotherapy session was held as most children with deafblindness have multiple disabilities, especially cerebral palsy. They were instructed on the manner of managing and positioning children with cerebral palsy.
The training concluded with the feedback received from parents, while the Project Coordinator Gabel Mascarenhas later proposed the vote of thanks.
