Attaching the details for those interested in helping below:
1. Letter from the boy’s parents.
2. Scanned documents: Please click on each one of these numbered links to see bigger preview of the documents.
1 2 3 4 5 6
Thanks,
– Bharat
From,
Prabhakar M.P
F/o Master Puneet
Sub: Requisition of donation for Cochlear Implant surgery
Respected Sir/Madam,
My son Puneet(4 year old) is suffering from Bilateral Sensorial Neural Hearing loss. He is using hearing aids since last one and half years but it is of no help.. He has been advised cochlear implant surgery at the earliest. The total surgery cost is estimated as Rs. 7,05,000/. This cost includes the implant worth Rs 5,55,000/-, Hospitalisation charges worth Rs 1,00,000/- and Auditory verbal Habilitation worth Rs50,000/-.
We request one and all to help our child and make her listen different sounds in his life. Without the cochlear implant He may never ever hear a single word and hence will never be able speak a word. Even little contribution from you will change my Son’s life.
Today’s tough economic conditions make it difficult for us to meet these needs without help from people like you.
With Regards
Prabhakar M. P
F/o Master Puneet
Those who want to help please send The cheques or DDs in the name of Dr Medikeri’s Super Speciality ENT center, and for details you can contact us on following numbers
India specific only:
Prabhakar:- +91 9448506566
Mamtha B. V.:- +91 9945927841
One of the key issues that has been bothering me, re-surfaced into my thoughts as I was talking to my mom in India. A casual inquiry on general health and well-being turned into a serious discussion regarding how important are the roles of parents and in general society in forming a solid base in life of a hearing impaired person. So I thought of putting some key points in this blog. It is my fervent hope that parents of the hearing impaired persons do read this and realize the enormity of the task they have in hand and I also hope that certain others (most sections of today’s society) who know someone related to them having the hearing impaired problems, can push the message across to them and help them overcome their problems.
As the child begins to prepare for the normal hearing world, the differences that occur might need some time for him/her to absorb – depending on his/her well preparedness, attitude, and more important of all his/her reasoning powers. It is extremely important that a sound well thinking and reasoning capabilities that help him/her to take stock of the situation around him/her, need to be developed at an early age.
Who can help fasten this process ?
Generally speaking from normal hearing person’s perspectives, there are very high chances that even though that person’s parents do not prepare him/her to the world that befalls on him/her, that he/she will learn to cope with it eventually in one way or so. However in the case of hearing impaired persons the task inevitably has more to do with the parents of the person. All financial, emotional and educational support need to come from the mother or the father or if they cannot provide at-least some Guardian.
Before training the child, I would like to urge the parents to practice what they preach to the kids. There are inevitably some moral lessons being imparted – of which to accept the mistakes and promise to correct them is one of the most key elements. It is perfectly okay to have some feelings for the kid that ensures him or her understand that you, as a parent love him/her very much. However, in certain cases, too much of excessive pampering is unwanted. Extra care must be taken to ensure that the child does things well and care must be taken to see that the gaps are plugged easily. If the parents do not know anything about how to fix those gaps in the child, they need to apply themselves into the situation and if possible get guidance and advise from other people who have certain idea in addressing those issues. They shouldn’t blame the kid when they don’t see the expected results from the kids. Instead they should understand that their kid is also trying to work hard and is missing something that is not helping him/her realize the required goals.
Also in most cases, parents assume that as the child grows up, it will learn to comprehend the things and develop the necessary thinking and reasoning abilities. This is not going to help especially for the kid. Again I plead to the parents and the people who know a hearing impaired child – Please help the child develop the reasoning powers at an early age so that once he/she gets into the school he/she knows how to approach the things and should be able to make best use of options available to him and succeed in whatever he/she wants to do.
Also there are certain things where the parents feel very very proud of the small achievements of their children. To show support is good and encouraging, but I would again like to stress that too much of over emphasis on such small achievements is not going to help again. Instead think like this, why not encourage your child to achieve bigger things. I do not mean pressing and putting pressure on him/her to a large extent. Let me share with you an anecdote here.
Prof. Randy Pausch, who died recently from Cancer, is already a known personality associated with Computer Science and Carnegie mellon. Most of you may know about him or may not even have a faint clue as to who is he. However, let me come to the point that I think is relevant here. This was shared by Randy Pausch himself in the last lecture given in the halls of Carnegie Mellon University, USA. When Randy started an unique course on Virtual Reality at Carnegie Mellon, he set out an assignment to the first batch of students enrolled in that course. When he set out to evaluate the submissions he was astounded by the high creative and stupendous work turned out to the students. He didn’t have clue how to grade class. So he consulted his mentor in Brown university, Andries Van Dam, the known Graphics pioneer.
Randy told him, Andy, I just handed over my first two-week assignment. And, for the work they’ve turned in, I would want to give them all A grades throughout the semester. What do I do ? Van Dam told: “Simple, Go back to the class tomorrow. Tell them, guys that was good, but you can do better.” Randy says that was probably the best advice Andy gave him, because by putting the bar somewhere you are doing dis-service to them. And Randy also says they continued to raise the bars and the returns were spectacular for the program.
So try to apply that to your kid also. The more you encourage your kid to stretch in all avenues, the more terrific his/her performance and exposure to the world and the returns will be truly spectacular.
There have been certain incidents in the past year, one of them where a kid ran away from the home etc, which deeply pained me. That is why I wrote this post. If I look at why those incidents happened it has either to do with the lack of parental guidance or lack of guidance from some good samaritans in the lives of kids leading to poor reasoning abilities in the kids. I hope that most sections of the society including the parents of the disabled children stop being intolerant and recognizes the needs of physically challenged children and help them mingle effectively with the mainstream instead of showering unnecessary sympathy and blind affection.
In this video, you can see a fresh new hearing impaired child, with a typical mother who has no information on how to train it to prepare for the mainstream society.
1. What will you do when you see a small hearing impaired kid like this ?
2. How will you motivate its mother ?
3. How will you help its parents ?
4. What do they need to do to help the kid ?
5. What kind of training is required for that kid ?
6. What are the effective and proven stages in the field of hearing impaired education ?
More information will soon come in form of posts, slides, documentation, videos. Keep watching this site.
This intention of this blog is to serve as a communication focal point for issues related to hearing impairment, traumas faced by hearing impaired people and their parents, motivation and mobilisation of parents to tackle such traumas methodically and systematically, to share experiences of certain successful mothers and their children, issues related to hearing impaired persons in mainstream society etc.
As for me, I’m the mother of Bharat Shetty, a hearing impaired person and a computer science engineering graduate from SJCE, Mysore. Bharat, took to the internet and became an addict for the sheer availability of information, an easy access to the communication with persons from various strata of the mainstream society, an easy platform to express his thoughts and learn from others etc. It was at insistence of Bharat, I began considering internet as one of the mediums to spread awareness regarding hearing impairment. It is my fervent hope that many parents having access to the internet as well as certain trusts, evangelists and NGOs find the material assembled here useful thereby galvanizing more support for the hearing impaired community.
I will continue to share my experiences and thoughts one by one. My son, Bharat will also continue to manage this site for me and may be occasionally write few tid-bits. However, the main content of this site will come from me. I request the people reading this blog to spread awareness either by sharing the blog link with interested people as well as offer suggestions via commenting mechanism or by emailing me.
So let the genesis begin.
Shravana Kirana 
