8 ACTIVITIES AND GAMES FOR DEAF CHILDREN - ECONOMÍA - 2024

Here is a list of games and activities for deaf children that you can do in education and even at home to improve their autonomy and understanding of the world around them.

Sometimes, it is difficult to know the type of exercise we can do with children who have some type of deafness. However, it is much easier than we think, since we only have to take into account the type of deafness you have and your age.

Activities to capture sounds

To improve the hearing of children who have some difficulty or even hearing impairment it is very important that they know how to capture the different sounds that exist.

One of the possible activities that you can do to improve and promote the acquisition of sounds of a person with deafness, are activities like the ones that we are going to present below:

1. Guess the riddle

Materials: percussion instruments like drum, triangle, cymbals etc.

Procedure: With different percussion instruments such as the triangle, the drum and the cymbals, play with the child to do different guessing activities. You simply have to first warn him that he is going to hear a noise and then do so and he has to guess how many times it has sounded or even if it has sounded.

To do this, you first have to close your eyes. In the first few occasions, he will be warned that the game is about to start but little by little you have to try not to say anything with the idea that he will try to realize if an instrument is playing or not.

Tips: On some occasions, due to the type of deafness that the child may present, it is normal for them not to hear a series of sounds and frequencies. In this case, we will carry out activities aimed at improving and promoting the uptake of sounds that can be worked with.

This activity can also be carried out with supervision in the classrooms of the centers if the children are placed in pairs.

2. Is the song playing?

Materials: music and chairs.

Procedure: It could be considered as the typical game of the chair and in fact it is. The objective of doing this activity is for the child to once again know how to identify that sounds are being produced around her, such as a song.

On this occasion, we will use all kinds of styles of music so that you can get used to the maximum variety of sounds. We will play them for a moment and when you stop listening to them you will have to sit down quickly so as not to lose your place.

Tips: At the beginning it is advisable to start with the loudest or with those that have rhythms that can be clearly heard as rock-type music, and finally use songs that are more paused and slow and therefore, it is more difficult for them to identify if it is sounding or not.

Activities to capture voices

Like the exercises to capture sounds, it is very important for your autonomy that you know how to identify when they are talking to you or if there are people who are talking around you. For this reason, we present some exercises that can help the child with the capture of voices:

3. Does my chest shake if I talk to you?

Materials: To carry out this activity, you will not need any type of material.

Procedure: Divide the children into pairs and put a couple of sentences on the board. These can be of the type: Tomorrow it will rain, I had a sandwich at recess, hello, my name is Julia etc. The activity will consist of the children having to put their hands first on their partner's chest, then they will begin to reproduce the phrases that have been placed on the board.

The goal is for children to notice that our chest and neck tremble when we are talking, so all sounds are generated in a similar way. They may associate that when there is a vibration in the environment or in our body we are talking and therefore, a sound is being produced.

Tips: It is important that we start the activity with short words, so that it is difficult for them to identify if the partner is speaking or not. Later, we have to intersperse short words with sentences.

4. Shall we speak whale?

Materials: To carry out this activity, you will not need any type of material.

Procedure: Divide the children into groups of three. Next, you have to assign them to an animal that is in the sea or on land to communicate. They tend to like this activity a lot, as they have to speak using different voices in order to identify which person is speaking.

You will put photos of different animals and they have to give them the voice that the animal can have. On the other hand, they have to imitate facial expressions when they are doing the activity.

Tips: It is important that they are directed during the exercise, since there will be children who due to their type of deafness do not know how to imitate the voices and sounds of animals, for this we will have to help ourselves with the positions of the lips and lip reading and facial.

Activities to see where sounds are coming from

On the other hand, it is also important not only to capture the sounds and voices but to know exactly where they come from. This will allow children to know how to locate the person or the object, something tremendously important for their autonomy and development in their daily life.

5. Where am I?

Materials: To carry out this activity, you will not need any materials.

Procedure: Once the children have been placed in pairs, one of them has to sit in the chair looking to the side and with their eyes closed. The other will position himself behind the partner.

Next, the partner who has been placed behind has to move to the side of the chair and begin to speak short words. Meanwhile, the child who has sat down has to identify from which side he is speaking. Once he has guessed it, the child who has this role will intersperse different positions around his partner.

When the child who is sitting in the chair with his eyes closed has passed all the tests, it is up to the partner who was standing to perform them. Once both of you have finished the activity, it will be rotated so that you can do the exercise with different types of voice.

Tips: It is important that the teacher supervises this activity so that the children do not run and use the space well, thus not giving clues to the classmate who is sitting on where they can be. The phrases can be the same as those used in previous exercises.

6. Where is the object that sounds?

Materials: For this activity, it will be convenient to use the percussion instruments that we already used in the previous activity, or on the contrary, any object that may have a strong enough sound.

Procedure: We will place the children in groups of three, then we will give each one an instrument and / or material with which they can work making sounds of different frequencies. Then one of them will sit in the middle with his eyes closed.

Later, their companions have to take turns using the instruments that have previously been given to them, while they intersperse the different places from which they can be placed.

The partner who is seated, has to guess where they have been placed and if possible what instrument or object they have been playing. When you get them right, the roles will be swapped.

Tips: To facilitate the type of activity, it is recommended that the positions from which the instruments have to sound are set. Also, it is necessary to present a priori the sounds and the material to be used.

As they evolve in the detection of sounds and voices, we can skip these indications.

Activities to differentiate and recognize sounds

Finally, once they know how to capture the sounds, the voices and where they come from, the most difficult thing remains: identifying exactly what object is sounding and recognizing it.

This will allow them to face the problems that may arise in their daily life, for example, when crossing the crosswalk, to know exactly what it sounds, where it sounds and where it sounds.

7. What object is playing?

Materials: Those materials that have been used previously and are familiar with would be fine. However, objects should be alternated with those they are not used to dealing with to make the activity more profitable.

Procedure: Once the children have been divided into groups of four. The teacher will distribute an object to one of them while the others are with their eyes closed. Whoever has the instrument has to stand in the middle and begin to sound the object or instrument that they have been given.

The rest of the classmates have to identify what object it is and where the sound comes from. Once they have guessed it, the partner in the middle should rotate with the other child in the group next to him, who will have another instrument.

Once all the children who have been placed in the center have gone through all the groups, other classmates will carry out this activity, so that all are able to identify the objects.

Tips: The teacher should be checking that the children who are in the center of the group are able to make the object sound properly. On the other hand, they must also control the time during which they are making it sound.

8. How does the world sound?

Material: CD with sounds of the world: rain, wind, cars, instruments… and computer or music player.

Procedure: This activity will be carried out in a group. The children should take a blank sheet and a pen or pencil and write down the different objects or things that are being reproduced on the CD.

Once the tracks to be played have been completed, they have to tell the teacher the sounds they have heard and the object or thing in question. For example, if they have heard it rain, they have to say that it was the rain.

Tips: It is recommended that the tracks be played two or three times, depending on the level of deafness that the students have. At first, it is normal for them to have a hard time identifying those sounds that they are not familiar with.