Lucas is nine years old. If other children do not want to listen to his age, you run away, or the ears to keep. Lucas is deaf-blind. His hands are his key to the world. With hand movements and his conversation partner, things, and activities – describe similar to the sign language. It’s just that Lucas can’t see the movements, but you sensed. He has also acted in a tactile way. He wants no contact, it deprives the other man of his hands.
Today, Lucas wants to listen. The nine-year-old with bright blonde short hair cut since his birth, deaf and blind. Since then, he is supported by the würzburg blind Institute. For five years he lives in a residential facility, together with four other boys from Bavaria. The blind Institute since more than 160 years, the visually impaired people in Würzburg, Germany, for the past 40 years, there is a so-called funding priority for the deaf and the blind.
Kindergarten teacher Stefanie Comforter leads Lucas into the living room. She walks behind him and gently holds him by both arms. After a few steps, Lucas lets go of, along touched the wall and walks alone in the kitchen. Comforter prepares him a box of food that you wear together to his place at the head of the table. The teacher tells Lucas that he could now eat. For this, she puts her hands under his. the hands of the speaker, the tactile sign is always down and takes his Hand to his mouth, the gesture for eating. Then she strokes her Hand over his. Lucas understands that He needs to lubricate his buns.
On the left eye, Lucas can still see colors
Successively takes Lucas, the items from the box, feel the bread bag and the sausage pack holds very close to his left eye. “On the left eye of Lucas has a tiny Sight, with which he can still perceive colors,” says Comforter. Because the eyesight is less than two per cent, he is, by Definition, blind. Also the orange juice Lucas considered very close. When Pouring he keeps his Finger in the glass to the point up to which he wants to fill it. His movements take, but they are recorded.
Using the long cane Lucas can be based in the Free. He is seen here in the company of his governess Stefanie Comforter to.
About 9,000 deaf-blind there are, according to an estimate by the Federal Association of the deaf-blind nationwide, the Bavarian Blind and visually impaired Federal speaks of more than 370 deaf-blind in Bavaria. How many there are exactly, is not statistically recorded, as is the case with the Blind.
Lucas is signing the food of his day. In school, he was Swimming. On his fingers, he counts five more times to sleep, then he is allowed back into the pool. Lucas’ sign are in part intelligible, such as the “nods Yes”: a fist in the head. In part, he and his managers created their own characters.
Lucas wears a cochlear implant
Each Person in Lucas’ environment gets a gesture. His roommate Patrick has short fringy hair. The gesture for him to Swipe across the forehead. “It is particularly important detection bracelets are for Lucas, to them, he sensed people,” said deaf-blind assistant Tabea Sadowski. You taught your students a large part of the tactile Gebärdens.
Your protege has to implant a so-called cochlear, the audio signals to the brain transmits. Since three-quarters of a year, Lucas can hear something, but its managers are not sure whether he is already able to distinguish language from other noises. He sometimes Sounds.
The deaf-blind Lucas felt the support of his teacher Stefanie Comforter, letters in Braille, which he had typed previously in a Braille-writing machine.
Nearly 70 children and young people living next to 290 adults in würzburg blind Institute. Similar to the deaf-blind residential communities in Heilbronn and Hanover. In Lucas’ WG the children due to their severe disability, little contact with each other – the nine-year-old is one of two boys not to sit in a wheelchair. All have their own rooms, with Lucas a wall bars depends on it. “Because we know that Lucas, despite his deaf and softness to be very careful and coordinated, he has to get the wall bars”, explains Frederik Noted, the head of the youth housing.
This feature also highlights Barbara Büchner. You trained Lucas’ mobility – exercises with him to navigate. “Lucas is very curious, which is unusual for deaf-blind children,” she says. Not see and not hear – life without the two most important senses, who could? Lucas can. He uses his body as a unit. Also his white cane helps him. Lucas was to measure everything.
The way to school, the nine-year-old knows by heart, his memory replaced his eyes. The room of the teacher, he recognizes the “feel” of wood symbols on the doors. In the beginning, Lucas had been the only amaze hard for the long stick, told Büchner. “We then turned into a glowing Laser sword that has him fascinated.” There are such creative ideas to give the Lucas quality of life. And, above all, his urge to meet, to discover continuously New.
