And Today's survey is?

Answer the BSL questions and win £100, easy isn't it!  Once again the RNID has loaded survey questions to trawl the BSL community for complaints so they can launch another campaign.  5 major questions were almost entirely about the BSL user, not other deaf or hard of hearing. It is hugely disappointing that the RNID again has used BSL as leading part of hearing loss awareness, and again, blurring the differences between deaf and others with hearing loss with this minority BSL community, which is a major contention of disputes regarding what awareness is about or even for.  

As regards to BSL questions, the RNID appears to display poor awareness of how this 'community' actually functions, campaigns or operates.  Most don't integrate or include themselves with mainstream things or people, and wouldn't if they could, they will obviously insist this is because society is ignorant of their needs, makes no  effort with them and cannot sign.  Does the RNID really need a survey that will state the obvious?   Why has the focus of the RNID gone back to sign users only again?  This is the BDA's issue, and they, DON'T include other deaf or hard of hearing, why do their work for them?

Despite no RNID/BSL members of note and a never-ending historical gripe from BSL using deaf the RNID dumped the only sign using CEO the charity ever had, because he had no idea what inclusion meant and treated the RNID charity as his own private deaf club to the detriment it was alleged, of the majority of the RNID Hard of Hearing membership.

What the survey didn't ask, were the real questions as to why insufficient efforts are being made to compromise with mainstream regarding a willingness to really engage.  All we read are demands for mainstream to change to suit them, and relentless 'blame' aimed at them. The every first thing anyone with hearing loss would do is to tell people what works for them, a high percentage of mainstream people WILL attempt to include, but, a high proportion of those with deafness and loss won't SAY what works for them, or, opt for a system that doesn't really work effectively for them to offset how serious their communication issues really are. 

Insert the question do you REALLY know what format works for you? or maybe 'When  using the NHS have YOU been offered signed support you never use?' or even 'Has the NHS every offered you communication alternatives e.g. text, etc?'  Ask the right questions RNID.

Latest deaf survey rubbishes the BDA and RNID claims..

The latest 'survey' carried out in Bristol on the state of the 'Deaf' situation in the UK

Note: The survey contains many random capitalisations of the term deaf regardless if applicable or even accurate.  Other areas of coverage we didn't feel relevant for inclusion because the stats are even wider guesswork, educated? YOU adjudge.

Survey Highlights... LINK

So how many Deaf people are there? Although there are few direct studies of incidence coupled to social studies, which would determine the size of the Deaf population, good estimates can be made on the basis of published work. At its simplest level, we can predict that between one in 2,000 people will have a severe-to-profound hearing loss. A crude projection would give the UK a Deaf population of *25,000 - 30,000 people - a more detailed analysis is given below. The age characteristics of this population should broadly match those of the hearing population - i.e. it is a population whose average age is becoming older.

*These figures suggest the BDA,  RNID, and NDCS claims are gross over-exaggerations.

There are several ways in which we can achieve an estimate of the number of *Deaf people in the UK. The first is by using the predicted incidence of deafness at birth and attaching this to all the population statistics for births throughout the years which would apply to the community. This is problematic as it gives only a medical-audiological estimate of hearing loss and does not imply directly, participation in the community by those with a specified hearing loss. That is, measured hearing loss does not equate directly with community membership.

*Deliberate capitalisation to suggest all deaf people they are sign using,  The 'D' refers solely to sign using cultural deaf by own claims.  Here, the survey applied it across the entire hearing loss spectrum.

The second is to use educational statistics. This is justifiable since *the majority of Deaf Community members will have gone through a school for the deaf. In both cases there are limitations on the extent of the data available and in the accuracy of the information. We have examined statistics more widely but these do not provide a sufficient base for a good estimate. A more effective estimate based on the population change and the year of birth is provided below.

*Not true of Wales, it has no deaf schools.

As a first step official statistics of the EU were consulted. These tend to produce estimates which are way above what we commonly believe to be true: 33% of the adult working population have an impairment and 19% have a disability. Eleven per cent are expected to have a disability related to language, speech, vision or hearing. This reduces finally to a *prediction of hearing problems for 2.65 million people in the UK. This will include those who acquire a hearing loss. Throughout these sets of official statistics the numbers seem to be inflated and unreliable. Source: Eurostat, p137.

*Here, the UK deaf survey ran out of stats and starts using EU ones, then extrapolating them back to the UK, and we aren't even IN Europe.

The Department of Health and Social Security published *the numbers of people registered handicapped in Britain in 1970. Deaf people are covered in this survey.

*Ooops nobody uses the handicap terminology any more, and these quoted stats are over 50 yrs out of date.

Handicap Register (1970). Deaf (Including hard of hearing)

The MRC Institute of Hearing Research based at Nottingham University reports that the incidence of congenital deafness is 1.1 per 1000 live births for hearing losses of >40dB and 1.1 per 4000 for profoundly Deaf (>95dB). This *implies that 880 children will be born in England, Scotland and Wales each year with a moderate hearing impairment (40dB or greater), of whom 220 (25%) will have a profound impairment (>95dB). In addition there is acquired deafness. By the age of 5 years a further 100 children in each birth cohort year will acquire an impairment, about 60 to 80 of whom will have a profound loss. So the total number of children in each year goes up to 980 with about 280-300 of them having a profound loss. This gives a figure on the high side for the Deaf Community - 70,000 mild to profound losses in the UK and 19,000 profoundly deaf.

*Now we resort to guesswork again, and inferring Hard of hearing are the 'Deaf' too.

Incidence Figures

Scottish Office Statistics show the population of Scotland in 1994 as 5.1 million (UK 58.2 m). Of these 2.5 million are males. The relative age distribution is shown in Table 2.5. An estimate provided by the Institute of Hearing Research in Glasgow indicates that 1.1 per thousand live births will have a hearing loss of 40dB and that of these, one quarter will have losses of over 95dB. *We can insert these predictions into the population statistics.

*We can suggest they are BSL using too, (despite the opening statement we just do not know, people would have stopped reading by now).

This gives an overall figure of 1,402 profoundly Deaf people and 5,608 people with a mild to profound hearing loss. *These figures can be multiplied by 11.2 to give the estimate for the UK of 15,702 for profoundly deaf people an 62,809 with a mild to profound hearing loss.

*Ok we rubbished all the RNID/BDA and Scottish stats and claims but....

The figures also imply very small populations in the outlying areas.(So numbers are smaller in rural areas. now they insult our intelligence.)

In these figures, the estimate of the changes in the Deaf population is linked to the general population trends, showing that there has been a *slow increase in the size of the Deaf population. These figures are based on the same proportionate estimates of the general population. A better estimate can be obtained when we can examine the Deaf school figures in terms of the age of the children. Here we can see that there is a general decline in the Deaf school population over the period from 1930. There are several gaps - the war years and also since 1982, when the DfEE stopped collecting statistics by type of problem. As a result we have no up-to-date figures for Deaf children in school. Part of the decline is due to the change in policy, so that more Deaf children are integrated and partly there is better provision of hearing aids and so the partially-hearing children tend not to appear in the statistics any longer. It seems likely that the Deaf Community has become more Deaf over the years although it would be very hard to obtain reliable measures of this.

*Oops better back-pedal too many own goals. Mainstreaming is too successful.

We are therefore left with a figure between the populations shown in Figure 4.1 (to be handed out in lecture). This has projections across the points where we have no data and it has components estimated by taking Scotland as a proportion of the UK.

*Back to the drawing board Scotties.

The figures  are for people between the ages of 16 years and 76 years. If we extend this proportionally downwards to include children from birth, the total figure we obtain for the UK is 26,096 former Deaf school pupils and 47,028 Deaf and partially Deaf. We can also see that this population is declining. That is although the percentage of people with a hearing loss remains much the same, there is a reduction in the number of Deaf school students and probably as a result, a reduction in the size of the Deaf Community. It is our expectation that this is not solving the problem of Deafness but that it is *creating a sub-group of Deaf people who do not have the benefits of Deaf Community resources. We would expect this problem to be seen later in life in higher levels of mental ill-health.

*Lack of BSL leads to poor mental health? Where is that proof?

Is Makaton 'Cultural Appropriation of BSL'?

According to BSL4All, yes it is...   

@NovicSara

·

21h

Replying to

@ebaggaley

and

@BSL4all

"Just so others understand, Makaton folks stole BSL signs and stripped away some of the more complex grammatical features of the language, then copywrote that. This would be like if someone took a bunch of common English nouns and said, "I invented a new language! Copyright!"  

Such arrogance! signed languages are 'owned' by a select area of deaf people, there is NO legal right/copyright to ownership or usage of sign language, and endless debates does BSL have own grammar? too. Do hearing learners 'appropriate' deaf culture and language too? get a grip!  Already BSL purists are pulling their hair out and attacking a communication format designed to help and enable deaf , autistic, and disabled children, to what end? If BSL is said to be essential for deaf children does that make any other aid to communication illegal to use? A downright lie only hearing children use Makaton is expressed too.

More evidence of creeping sectarianism in areas of the 'Deaf' community, obviously being paranoid isn't enough of an issue to them.   Same old, those who profit via BSL tuition and support don't tolerate 'competition', is nobody caring about the basic issues Makaton,  lip-reading, literacy and hearing aids etc are all designed to HELP children, time enough when they are adults to enter the vacuum that the 'Deaf Community' is becoming then.  Appalling, that established child support charities are supporting this distortion of sign language view too.

When a culture becomes a cult isn't it.  Sara love, please get out more..... Kids come first not you.

'Unstable' Deaf woman must have communication help.

 Deaf mum in family court fight with Northamptonshire council must be given help

Is a BSL interpreter an 'intermediary'?  A deaf woman must have specialist communication help at a trial, says a judge A deaf woman embroiled in a family court fight with social services over the care of her two-year-old daughter must have help from a communication specialist at a trial, a judge has ruled.

West Northamptonshire Council has applied for a care order. Social services staff have raised concerns about the woman's ability to look after the child. Mrs Justice Lieven has decided that the woman will need a "deaf intermediary". The judge has outlined her decision and detail of the case in a written ruling published online, following a preliminary private hearing in London.

She said the child could not be identified in media reports of proceedings. Mrs Justice Lieven, a High Court judge who is based in the Family Division of the High Court in London, heard evidence about the woman's communication difficulties from a specialist. "I accept that the appointment of a deaf intermediary... in this case is necessary," said the judge, in her preliminary ruling.

"The mother's communication issues here are profound." Lawyers representing the council told the judge that staff were concerned the child could be "at risk of significant harm". Social workers said their main argument related to the woman's "potential" to "gravitate towards risky relationships". They were concerned that her mental health was "unstable" and worried about her "inability" to recognise "dangerous and risky situations".

MAKATON is a language too.

Recognise Makaton as a language in law, a new petition to get Makaton recognised as a language the same as BSL.

Makaton uses signs from BSL, which is recognised as a language in law, however, Makaton is not. There are around 1 million users of Makaton in the UK, but we believe their ability to communicate with others, including professionals, in their day-to-day life is limited because it is not currently recognised as a language in law.

If Makaton was to be recognised as a language in law it we believe this would help make it more accessible for all who rely on it for their communication.

PETITION LINK

BSL GCSE (Cymru) What survey?

 Years ago a BSL GCSE mooted in Wales, it never got off the ground, why?

The BSL survey nobody knew about until it was closed.

GCSE British Sign Language

The work on British Sign Language has taken a different timeline to other subjects as there is no history of teaching BSL as a subject and there is no current GCSE to review and reform. In order to better understand the context in which we’re working, we have undertaken considerable engagement and conducted detailed scoping work.

NOT aimed AT deaf people or BSL users?

As reported in our decisions report published in October 2021, there was strong support for developing a made-for-Wales qualification. It is worth noting that from those responses we were unable to determine whether respondents were in favour of developing a qualification for first language users or for learners, or both.

As a result of the research undertaken and conversations with stakeholders, we propose to develop a made-for-Wales GCSE aimed at learners who are learning BSL for the first time. We are proposing this because:

It will help raise the profile of BSL in Wales and enable a more inclusive society.

It will give more young people the opportunity to learn BSL. BSL has been visible on prime-time television programmes which has raised its profile generally and the visibility of positive role models potentially could lead to more people wishing to learn BSL.

It will give schools time to build capacity to deliver BSL at the higher levels of the progression steps.

It will help build a critical mass of BSL users and those who can understand BSL in the workforce of the future.

It will ensure viable numbers for awarding bodies in the medium term although initial numbers completing the GCSE may be modest.

We acknowledge that this may not be a suitable GCSE for fluent and confident users of BSL and are aware that the decision may need to be revisited in the future to offer options for learners developing their communication skills to higher levels.

We will consult on the design proposal for a new GCSE BSL following collaboration with subject experts, practitioners and other stakeholders.

Ear wax can terrify...

Relative to the UK's RNID charity current campaign about inadequacy in helping deaf/HI people remove ear wax, which can render you deaf, and as covered here, triggering trauma and fear too. .Loose Women's Kaye Adams has shared with fans how she took a trip to A&E after losing her hearing on the show. The presenter, 61, has given details of the health scare after the incident as she appeared on the ITV panel show.

Dame Kelly Holmes, Judi Love, and Nadia Sawalha all joined her to discuss the day's topics on Friday, January 26, when Kaye revealed she lost all hearing in her right year just minutes before she was due to be on air, reports the Mirror. During Friday's show, Kaye opened up on the scary moment as she told viewers: "We showed you a clip of what happened to me last Friday just before we went on air.

"I just completely lost my hearing in my right ear." A clip was then shown of Kaye struggling to hear the producers in her ear piece last week, where she said she could "hear nothing".

Note:  'Loose women' is a woman's program on UK ITV network.

Are BSL Teachers actually qualified?

A follow on to the British Deaf Association publishing a BSL teacher directory, suggesting no shortage of teachers to develop a BSL GCSE. Factually, teaching BSL in informal settings a few hours a week  doesn't actually qualify them to teach in schools via the curriculum without additional qualifications, the only 'exemption' is if the pupils are deaf etc, even then conformity to the curriculum is essential, they cannot ignore English or its grammar e.g. and NOT if the students are hearing.

The official declaration:

To teach in a mainstream school, BSL teachers generally need to meet the same qualifications and requirements as other subject teachers. This may include having a teaching degree or certification, as well as any additional qualifications specific to teaching BSL or working with students who are deaf or hard of hearing.

Additionally, BSL teachers may need to adapt their teaching methods and materials to effectively teach hearing students. They may focus on teaching BSL as a foreign language, enabling hearing students to develop communication skills and cultural understanding of the deaf community. The curriculum may include sign language vocabulary and grammar, deaf culture, and communication strategies.

The battle against Rogue genes that deafen.

His father's voice, the sounds of passing cars and scissors clipping his hair: An 11-year-old boy is hearing for the first time in his life after receiving a breakthrough *gene therapy.

The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) which carried out the treatment -- a first in the United States -- said in a statement Tuesday the milestone represents hope for patients around the world with hearing loss caused by genetic mutations. Aissam Dam was born "profoundly deaf" because of a highly rare abnormality in a single gene. "Gene therapy for hearing loss is something that we physicians and scientists in the world of hearing loss have been working toward for over 20 years, and it is finally here," said surgeon John Germiller, director of clinical research for CHOP's otolaryngology division.

"While the gene therapy we performed in our patient was to correct an abnormality in one, very rare gene, these studies may open the door for future use for some of the over 150 other genes that cause childhood hearing loss."

In patients like Aissam, a defective gene prevents the production of otoferlin, a protein necessary for the "hair cells" of the inner ear to be able to convert sound vibrations into chemical signals that are sent to the brain. Otoferlin gene defects are highly rare, accounting for 1 - 8 percent of hearing loss present from birth.

On October 4, 2023, he underwent a surgical procedure that involved partly lifting his eardrum and then injecting a harmless virus, which had been modified to transport working copies of the otoferlin gene, into the internal fluid of his cochlea. As a result, the hair cells began making the missing protein and functioning properly. Almost four months since receiving the treatment in one ear, Aissam's hearing has improved to the point he only has mild-to-moderate hearing loss and he is "literally hearing sound for the first time in his life,"  said the statement.

The New York Times reported that despite being able to hear, Aissam, who was born in Morocco and later moved to Spain, may never learn to talk, as the brain's window for acquiring speech closes around the age of five. The US Food and Drug Administration, which greenlighted the study, wanted to start the research on older children first, for safety reasons. The trial, sponsored by Akouos, Inc, a wholly owned subsidiary of Eli Lilly and Company,  is one of several underway or about to start in the United States, Europe and China, where a handful of other children have already been reportedly cured.

"As more patients at different ages are treated with this gene therapy, researchers will learn more about the degree to which hearing is improved and whether that level of hearing can be sustained over many years," Germiller said.

*There is no specific number of genes that cause deafness as the condition can be caused by mutations in various genes. According to scientific research, over 100 different genes have been identified to be associated with genetic hearing loss. These genes can be responsible for different types of hearing loss, including syndromic (associated with other medical conditions) and non-syndromic (isolated hearing loss). However, the exact number of genes involved in causing deafness is still being studied, and new genes continue to be discovered.

STOP PRESS: CHINA 6 deaf children cured by 1 injection.