On Thursday the 9th of February, Deaf Hear Ireland visited the Transition Year students to give a DAHAT (Deaf and Hearing Awareness Training) workshop to raise awareness about people with all manner of hearing issues. We learned about how people who are hard of hearing use technology to improve their hearing. We also learned how to say our name in sign language, how to do the alphabet in sign language and how to count in sign language. We also took a hearing test to experience what it’s like for a deaf person to hear. The hearing test had three parts, the first part made your hearing very muffled, in the second part you could hear better but it was still very vague, In the third part you could hear much more clearly. This was to show that people can have different levels of hearing impairment.
We also found out about the experiences of the facilitators when they were growing up and the way in which deaf people were segregated in their education and isolated from society. They also raised awareness with us, for instance it was not unusual for a woman to have to have a piece of string attached to their baby so they would know if the baby was waking up or crying. We also discovered that deafness is genetic and passes down through families. One of our facilitators, Shane told us that he has five children, all of whom are deaf, like him. There were two interpreters in the room who spoke aloud as Shane signed, Shane told his that his first language is sign.
The workshop went very well and the students all learned a lot and were encouraged to really challenge their perceptions and understanding of the deaf community.