Education Malaysia Project #8029

Equip deafblind children with skills for life!

by St. Nicholas' Home, Penang

Equip deafblind children with skills for life!

Project Report | Feb 21, 2024
Master of Sensing

By Nurul Syahirah | DBMH Teacher

This boy is called Rajesh. He is 16 years old and an only child, living with his father and his mother in Shah Alam. He, as so many children in St Nicholas’ Home, is suffering from Rubella Syndrome, leaving him with low vision and poor hearing condition. In addition to that, Rajesh is also afflicted by Global Delay Development and Nil-Disease, which makes an independent live very difficult for him.

Rajesh joined us eight years ago. At this time, he was yet fully dependent on his parents to assist him in every part of his life. Everything from walking to bathing to eating seemed difficult for him. Moreover, Rajesh also had a sleeping problem, as he would prefer to sleep all day and stay up all night. Furthermore, due to the Global Delay Development, this boy has a problem concentrating on a task, which leads to frustration he shows in aggression to others, but also to himself.

Nonetheless, Rajesh’s behavior and abilities improved immensely over the time in St. Nicholas’ Home. One of our first priorities were making sure that he stayed up all day, so he would be able to sleep at night with the other children. We also familiarized him with the outlay of our home, nowadays he is now able to walk short distances by himself. Furthermore, we are trying to advance his concentration by giving him small tasks of short duration on which he can concentrate completely. We noticed that whenever someone sits close to him during these tasks, Rajesh might get distracted more easily, but he also seems more prone on doing his tasks, showing us that he is also in need of comfort and support. As well as that, we are doing some motor skills to get him accustomed to using both his hands and walking carefully automatically.

Apart from these skills, we still hope to improve Rajesh’s way of communication with us. In comparison to eight years ago, it has already enhanced quite a lot. He is now able to show teachers and caretakers that he is hungry and is getting restless once he is uncomfortable in a place. However, we are still working on making him sign small things, for example ‘T’ for when he has to use the toilet, but his adaption to that has not been totally consistent until now.

All in all, although Rajesh’s progress takes longer than the progress of some other children in St Nicholas’ home, it is still very noticeable that he became in some parts of his life slightly more independent. We hope very much to be able to improve his lifestyle further in the coming two years he is with us at St. Nicholas Home.

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Aug 22, 2023
Joyous Jamie

By Syahirah | DBMH Teacher

Below, you can see 17 year old Jamie (nickname) from Alor Setar. He is part of a family with two caring parents, one brother, and one sister. Unfortunately, his mother got infected by the Rubella Virus during her pregnancy, leading to Jamie being born with Rubella Syndrome. Especially during this period, Rubella can cause consequences like deafness, blindness, brains disorders, and further disabilities. Jamie was born deaf and by the age of seven completely lost his sight.

When Jamie joined the St. Nicholas Home at the age of eleven, he was still very dependent on other people. Regarding eating, clothing himself, and cleaning himself, he still very much needed the help of his family members and the teachers. Now, after six years, his skills have improved drastically. Jamie is no longer in need of assistance concerning these living skills and, furthermore, does not even need directions to start completing these tasks by himself. In addition to that, in familiar surroundings, teachers are able to let him walk by himself, as he is absolutely able to safely find places like the bathroom, the classroom, and the dining-hall independently.

However, his living skills are yet to be improved. First thing every morning, he is being taken out to the yard to learn how to walk consciously with a white cane. Additionally, his concentration skills are being promoted by tasks which he has to handle very carefully, like folding cloths in laundry and moving small objects from one container to another.
We hope to be able to improve Jamie’s social skills as well. He is aware of there being other children with him in the classroom, but he chooses at times to stay by himself.

We teachers are sometimes still struggling with communicating fully with him. We are able to tell him to prepare himself once it is lunch time or to go to the bathroom, but as he is ready to do any task we give him, it is hard to find out which he prefers. In addition to that, as Jamie is relying on tactile sense, it is one of our only ways to communicate with him, which makes it at times hard when we want to introduce a completely new task.

Nonetheless, Jamie has shown a lot of improvement since coming to St. Nicholas Home six years ago. Even though he has this difficult start in life, he is still a happy child and the teachers can often observe him laughing, lost in his thoughts. We plan to improve his situation further, supported by his parents, and start our last year with him with the wish of making him as independent as we and he can manage.

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Apr 20, 2022
The candle in the wind

By Cavin Reuben | Teacher

Charles is on Google Meet online class

Charles (not his real name) is a young adult, now in his late teen was born with lown vision and diagnosed as ADHD too. He totally lost his vision on his left eye at the age of seven due to retinal detachment. At the age of ten, his right eye suffered the same fate; retinal detachment. He was diagnosed with cataract and glaucoma a year later. He is staying with his parents together with two sisters and an elder brother.

He is the third child in the family. Due to his nature of not being able to sit quietly for a while, certain activities have to be carried out under adult’s supervision.

During movement control order(MCO) period, Charles was not able to attend classes at St Nicholas’s Home,PenangLessons are conducted via online at the comfort of hishome. It is basically on one-to-one teaching focuses onbasic academic based on his capability. He is taught on learning new vocabulary, form new words, making sentences, storytelling and basic arithmetic. During his online lesson, Charles needs coaxing from his teacher to stay attentive during the lesson. Although he looks forward to meeting the teacher online platform, he is quite chatty and seems to be on “themove” during the lesson. He will be moving around most of the time with the mobile phone. However, if his dad is at home, he will be very obedient and sits through the online class.

He can be quite forgetful, hencethe teacher constants repeating the lesson especially on counting and spelling. Now he is able to do counting,adding and subtractionin sums of less than 20, and simple spelling on his own independently. This small step of achievement never come easily without thecooperation of the parents and we are looking forward to have joint effortto bring the best in Charles’s learning experience.

Your hardest times often lead to the greatest moments of your life. Keep going. Tough situations build strong people in the end.”
- Roy T. Bennett, the Light in the Heart -

Charles is writing words and show to camera

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