Deaf Today: More than 200,000 deaf children able to "talk"

May 29, 2005

More than 200,000 deaf children able to "talk"

From: Xinhua, China - May 29, 2005

BEIJING, May 29 (Xinhuanet) -- Over 220,000 deaf children now can "talk" with their mouths after being trained, and almost 40,000 ofthem are studying in elementary schools or kindergartens with healthy children.

These children gained their speaking abilities thanks to a special aid activity to help deaf children launched by the China Disabled Persons' Federation, which, so far, has involved over 42,000 deaf children from poor families.

Across the world, a total of 250 million people suffer from hearing problems at a medium degree. China has 20.57 million people with hearing or speaking disabilities, 800,000 of which areunder the age of seven. The number of people with hearing and speaking problems is the largest group among all disabled persons in China.

Currently, there are over 1,700 training centers for deaf children in China, which have trained over 10,000 specialists and over 100,000 patients.

The training is technically supported by the China Rehabilitation Research Center for Deaf Children, backed by provincial and municipal training centers, and based on communities and families. Enditem