NGO brings high hopes to the

Late diagnosis of the disability profoundly affects the development and future of youngsters

When Millicent Mabusela gave birth to her son Tumisho 13 years ago she had not contemplated he would have a disadvantage in life. He was chubby, healthy and smiling. But she real- ised something was wrong when, by the age of two, he had not uttered a word.

“I knew by that time he should be saying ‘mama’ at least,” says the single mother, who lives in Alexandra in Johannesburg.

“When he was three, I took him to the hospital to find out if there was something I was doing wrong as a mom but I never expected what they told me,” she says.

After a few hours of tests doctors and audiologists told her that her son was deaf.

“And it was like I became deaf myself all of a sudden. I could not hear the doctor’s words anymore or anything else.”

After Millicent recovered from her initial shock she felt “lost”.

“People were talking to me about things I have never heard before like implants, hearing aids and cued speech, until a lady from Hi Hopes [an organisation that supports families with deaf children] called me — that’s when things began to make sense and I began to start thinking Tumisho and I would have a chance in this life.”

Each day about 17 babies in South Africa are born deaf or with hearing impairments, according to a 2009 study published in the South African Medical Journal.

“In about half of these cases we don’t know the cause of hearing loss but the other half can be attributed to a number of things like contracting German measles when pregnant, drinking alcohol while pregnant, other viruses, complications during birth and neonatal stays in intensive care units,” says Claudine Storbeck, who heads up the Centre for Deaf Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand.

About 10 years ago Storbeck “noticed a gap” in “the support world for deaf people, particularly for families with deaf babies”.