The motto of the event: "You can hear thanks to technology. Being heard is thanks to people."“I am the mother of a child with hearing impairment; my son’s name is Alinur. I have three children, and only he has hearing problems. Alinur is in the second grade of a regular school and is successfully mastering the curriculum. He has binaural hearing aids,” she said.
According to the mother, many parents mistakenly believe that after the installation of hearing aids, the child will immediately start speaking. However, it is important to develop understanding: the child needs to learn to process information and adapt to the environment.
“In rehabilitation, we employed a comprehensive approach: sessions with a deaf educator, speech therapist, defectologist, as well as physical and motor development. This yielded excellent results. Alinur became more confident, better understood and controlled his body, and his movements became more coordinated. Children with hearing impairments often experience vestibular system dysfunction, which leads to clumsiness and problems in group games,” explains Rysbaeva.
Tattygul Rysbaeva. The event dedicated to the International Day of Cochlear Implantation.
“Our children, who started hearing later, perceive the world mainly visually. They memorize information using sight. For example, Alinur learned the multiplication table at the age of five, thanks to cartoons and visual materials. He has a special love for numbers: he knew them in Russian and English, could count to a million, add, subtract, and multiply. However, his speech developed more slowly than his mathematical abilities,” the mother added.
After the installation of the devices, active work on vocabulary began. They used visual cards for teaching: showing how to open and close a window, the mother pronounced the words and demonstrated actions to create connections between the words and their meanings.
On walks from home to kindergarten, they named everything they saw: car, house, tree, grass, stone, sky. Through the repetition of new words, sometimes over several weeks, the child learned to perceive them by ear and memorized them.
Alinur. The event dedicated to the International Day of Cochlear Implantation.
Rysbaeva notes that such work requires constant effort from the entire family.
“Only the full involvement of the family in the rehabilitation process leads to the child's success,” she is convinced.It is also necessary to monitor the hearing aids, which require regular maintenance. “Batteries discharge quickly, and I always check the devices after work: can he hear and is everything okay? We clean them at least once every two days, as earwax can clog the tube and interfere with sound perception. The devices need to be dried properly and removed during sleep, opening the battery compartment so they can 'rest' and not whistle,” Tattygul Rysbaeva explains.
Tattygul Rysbaeva. The event dedicated to the International Day of Cochlear Implantation.
It is important to explain to the child that these are his hearing aids, and no one has the right to touch them. He needs to be taught to explain to other children that these are not headphones, but devices that help him hear.
“There was a case when a classmate asked Alinur if he had headphones on his ears. My son calmly replied that these are hearing aids that help him hear,” Rysbaeva recounts.“Before sending him to school, I discussed his situation with the deputy principal and the class teacher. I explained that he needs an inclusive environment to become a full member of society. He is safe, he has no mental or psychological disorders, he is attentive and teachable. Usually, children with hearing impairments are sent to specialized schools or boarding schools, but we were recommended a regular school for further development,” she shares.
According to Rysbaeva, those around them react normally to her son's characteristics. They have not faced open discrimination. “Perhaps someone thinks something to themselves, but no one says anything negative out loud. Maybe this is because I present my child as a full member of society. I am more demanding of him than of other children because if I do not set high expectations, he may become lazy and stop developing,” she added.
Now Alinur does his homework by himself (except for complex math texts). He helps his younger brother, who is in the first grade: he checks the schedule, brings the necessary books, and monitors the completion of homework. The boy feels his responsibility as an older brother.
“I want to reiterate: before losing his hearing, Alinur could hear well. For example, he could hear when we opened a bottle of soda in the kitchen and would run in shouting: 'Coke, Coke.' He could hear, but then he lost his hearing. Therefore, no one is immune to this. It is important to be more humane and open to children and people with developmental disabilities,” Tattygul Rysbaeva concluded.
