A total of 163,000 deaf children have managed to recover their
hearing and speaking capacity thanks to a rehabilitation program
China launched in 1988.
According to information released by the China
Disabled Persons' Federation(CDPF), there are approximately
800,000 deaf kids under the age of seven and more than 30,000
newborns with impaired hearing ability.
About 70 percent of them live in China's rural areas, according to
the federation.
The federation has made it a priority in the coming years to
rehabilitate deaf children and enable them to enter mainstream
education in primary schools.
A
program has been launched to supply subsidized hearing aids to
children in needy families across the country with hearing
disabilities.
( November 5, 2002)