The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on deaf adults, children and their families in Ghana

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on deaf adults, children, and their families in Ghana, focusing on issues of inclusion. We ask what it takes to �make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable� (United Nations Strategic Development Goal 11) for deaf people in the context of the global pandemic in a low-resource context. The exceptional challenge to inclusion posed by COVID-19 is examined in terms of issues for deaf children and their families, and from the point of view of deaf adults in advocacy and support organisations. The pivotal language and communication issues are shown through a bioecological analysis that illuminates the interdependent dynamics of development and context, and their influence on access to, and understanding of, crucial information. It is argued that the global crisis of COVID-19 exposes and deepens issues of societal exclusion for deaf adults, children, and their families, and provokes wider questions about what inclusion means and how it can be realised, in different cultural contexts.

If online learning works for you, what about deaf students? Emerging challenges of online learning for deaf and hearing-impaired students during COVID-19: a literature review

“…Deaf students have also suffered from a lack of access to education and welfare services, such as inadequate sign language interpreting avenues, the difficulty of lip-reading when teachers are wearing masks, limited direct support by teachers, among others [ 58 , 78 – 80 ]. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic has worsened social exclusion among deaf students, especially with the disruption of daily interactions with other people, lack of access to information, and inadequate sign language interpreters [ 6 , 61 ]. The exclusion is caused by lack of internet access, poor infrastructure, poverty that impedes lack of access to high-quality educational materials, barriers relating to lack of accessible learning management systems (LMSs), inability to use the LMS to access the content, and LMSs that do not cater for the needs of deaf students [ 2 ].…”

“…[ 5 ]. As noted by Swanwick et al [ 6 ], the United Nations [ 7 ] made a declaration titled “Disability-Inclusive Response to COVID-19”, which acknowledged that people with disabilities took the hardest hit during the pandemic and their education requires immediate assistance.…”

I Cannot See You—The Perspectives of Deaf Students to Online Learning during COVID-19 Pandemic: Saudi Arabia Case Study

“…Furthermore, in their study, Lynn et al [34] evaluated how students were learning chemistry during the pandemic and found that access services, such as interpreters and captioners, were vital to DHH education, and making sufficient accommodations ensure inclusion. Another piece of research by Swanwick et al [35] was conducted in Ghana to determine how the pandemic had affected deaf education and found that exclusion for DHH students was different in various cultural contexts and developmental areas. Research by Paatsch and Toe [36] utilized a literature review methodology and indicated that DHH students in typical classrooms developed pragmatic skills and proposed using the conversation model to deal with the challenges faced by such students.…”

"We’re an afterthought" - Experiences of the deaf, blind, and deafblind in sub-Saharan Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Lockdowns have had tremendous impacts on the economies worldwide, but as the consultations highlighted, deaf, blind, and deafblind people appear to have been disproportionately affected, compounding already high rates of poverty and unemployment. This is oftentimes linked to culturally rooted stigmatization and discrimination, leading people to wrongly assume that individuals with physical impairments are also mentally impaired -and, shockingly, in some cases, even less human (see also Swanwick et al, 2020;Senjam & Singh, 2020). As one person stated in a consultation, "People with disability are viewed as having less value…" Before the pandemic, many blind people depended on singing on buses, or begging or selling sweets on the streets to survive.…”

“…These measures recognize that the inclusion of persons with disabilities in disaster preparedness and responses is a human right. These agreements recognize the need to shift from a charity model of disability in disaster responses, wherein people are viewed as "either victims or needy recipients" (Calgaro et al, 2021), to a model that treats people as self-determining cultural groups and individuals with distinct human rights and agency (Craig et al, 2019;Swanwick et al, 2020).…”