Tactile signing helps mother and daughter communicate after 30 years
After 30 years of frustration, course improves llife for mother and disabled daughter
For 30 years, a mother and daughter lived side by side, but were unable to communicate.
Lin Lisha, 34, was born completely deaf, and with a visual degenerative disease which means she can now barely see. For those three decades she had almost completely no interaction with the world.
Even her mother, Lam Wa-on, 60, had no proper way of communicating with her.
“The first 30 years was so painful,” said Lam on Saturday, at the launch of a book chronicling the journey of six people who suffered from deafness and blindness, and the various ways translators and social workers had tried to assist them.
Unable to communicate with her daughter, family life was reduced to daily frustrations and lots of tantrums, said Lam. On most days, Lam would end up shutting Lin into her room to sleep, while she got on with her work. Lam said she was often in a state of despair and sadness.
Then, in 2010, Lam joined a new course on tactile signing, while Lin learned hand signing. For the first time in 30 years, the mother and daughter could actually communicate. Tactile signing is a method of communication based on standard manual signs.