International Deaf Awareness Week

But the British are not involved..... We have better things to do...

International Deaf awareness week is observed every year in the last week of September from Sunday to Saturday. The world congress of deaf was held in the last week of September in 1951 and since then the final week in the month of September came to be specially marked as an activity and awareness programme against deafness. The main purpose behind the deaf awareness is to know the people with the problem, understand their issues and to devise measures for prevention and treatment of deaf.
The world deaf federation observes the deaf awareness week as a special time to go through the life, happenings, issues and problems related to deaf people. Less than half percent of deaf population are born that way with the other half acquiring the problem as their life and age progresses. Many times people who are deaf to a lesser extent do not identify their problem, and going on like this might augment the problem leading to permanent hearing loss. The awareness activities conducted in this week take people’s notice towards the issue and how bad it can be if the minor hearing defect is not checked on time. 
A large percentage of deaf population is comprised of Children who are deaf due to congenital causes or acquire it due to infections in early childhood. A child born deaf or who acquires deafness in early childhood is deprived of two special senses - hearing and speech - as these are intricately related. Speech development during childhood is essentially dependent on degree of hearing as poor hearing leads to poor speech especially if the hearing defect is congenital or acquired in first two years of life, when the ability of the brain to develop speech is maximum.
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