I was having an interesting conversation with my students from Hong Kong and China recently, about deafness. She told me that they never see any deaf people in Hong Kong or China. They didn't know why, but they just didn't.
I had a wee laugh over this initially because what do 'deaf' people look like??? We dont exactly standout a crowd.
But the conversation made me curious about it. So over to my trusty google button to find out numbers. Numbers of deaf people in Hong Kong is 'unknown'...
Hong Kong
Number: : Unknown. In 1982-1983, 1880 moderately- to severely-hearing impaired children were enrolled in Hong Kong schools or other programs.
Prevalence: Audiometric screening programs in schools suggest the rate of profound deafness (defined as greater than 90 dB) among Hong Kong children is 30.3 per 100,000; the rate of severe deafness (defined as between 56 and 90 dB) appears to be 50.14 per 100,000 (1983).
-- (Gallaudet Encyclopedia, vol.2 p.73.) However, number of deaf people in China seems to be quite considerable..
According to the China Disabled Persons' Federation website, China has approximately 21 million people with hearing loss out of 60 million disabled. Well they do have a large population, but I was surprised how easy it was to get information like for China, when it was difficult to get Hong Kong. I had expected the ease of information would have been the other way round.
The website for Chinese Deaf culture was quite interesting. Explanations for their sign language and how it is based, the current research that the chinese are doing for the deaf. And the most interesting .. 'Tonal rehabiliation for cochlear implants'. Very interesting, because...
Chinese language is very tonal, especially Mandarin. The tone of a word is everything - a higher pitched tone will mean one thing, and a lower something else. So how do hearing impaired, and profoundly deaf people without sign language get on? Tone is something that you can't lipread. I was also informed that the Cantonese language rarely moves lips. I wonder if Cochlear Implants help with this a little, a lot, not at all?
If anyone reading this knows anything about this topic at all, please leave me a message as I'm very curious.
Cheers
Robyn
aka Curious George :)
I had a wee laugh over this initially because what do 'deaf' people look like??? We dont exactly standout a crowd.
But the conversation made me curious about it. So over to my trusty google button to find out numbers. Numbers of deaf people in Hong Kong is 'unknown'...
Hong Kong
Number: : Unknown. In 1982-1983, 1880 moderately- to severely-hearing impaired children were enrolled in Hong Kong schools or other programs.
Prevalence: Audiometric screening programs in schools suggest the rate of profound deafness (defined as greater than 90 dB) among Hong Kong children is 30.3 per 100,000; the rate of severe deafness (defined as between 56 and 90 dB) appears to be 50.14 per 100,000 (1983).
-- (Gallaudet Encyclopedia, vol.2 p.73.)
However, number of deaf people in China seems to be quite considerable..
According to the China Disabled Persons' Federation website, China has approximately 21 million people with hearing loss out of 60 million disabled.
Well they do have a large population, but I was surprised how easy it was to get information like for China, when it was difficult to get Hong Kong. I had expected the ease of information would have been the other way round.
The website for Chinese Deaf culture was quite interesting. Explanations for their sign language and how it is based, the current research that the chinese are doing for the deaf. And the most interesting .. 'Tonal rehabiliation for cochlear implants'. Very interesting, because...
Chinese language is very tonal, especially Mandarin. The tone of a word is everything - a higher pitched tone will mean one thing, and a lower something else. So how do hearing impaired, and profoundly deaf people without sign language get on? Tone is something that you can't lipread. I was also informed that the Cantonese language rarely moves lips. I wonder if Cochlear Implants help with this a little, a lot, not at all?
If anyone reading this knows anything about this topic at all, please leave me a message as I'm very curious.
Cheers
Robyn
aka Curious George :)