Dance therapy offers deaf children outlet for expression

Dance classes are helping to boost the confidence and cognitive development of pupils at Seven Steps Academy for the Deaf in Zonnebloem.

Caryn Eigner, from Zonnebloem, is a creative movement instructor who teaches pupils aged four to 12 how to express themselves through music and movement.

“I love working with special needs kids. They are so receptive, they are enjoying it and so am I. There were kids that are shy and reserved but slowly they have come out of their shells and started moving, dancing. Over time they listen more and their communication with me has improved,” said Ms Eigner.

“Talent, the little girl, did not participate at all in the beginning, but now the connection between us has improved and she is enjoying the dancing. They all are because when they see me they know it’s party time,” she said.

Ms Eigner says they enjoy Justin Bieber’s Baby, Sunflower by Post Malone, Happy by Pharrell, September by Justin Timberlake and songs by Katy Perry.

“They love Uptown Funk, Moves like Jagger and all the latest upbeat songs. They know these songs and you can see how they react to it, it’s wonderful to see how they enjoy it,” she said.

“Deaf children need an outlet to express themselves. It’s draining to listen to someone explain something to you when you are hard of hearing or deaf so they do get tired. With this dance programme they can express themselves through dance,” said Marina Paioni, head of department at the academy.

“The music is fairly loud so they can feel the rhythm through the carpet, you have someone demonstrating to them to follow or they imitate each other and they really enjoy dancing,” she said.

Ms Paioni said the children were happier; more relaxed and had become more confident through expressing their creativity through dance.

“Art and dance is a fantastic way to express emotions and we can definitely see the benefits of the dancing class,” she said.

The audiologist at the academy, Nihaad Wilkinson, checks and maintains the hearing aids of the children as well as testing their hearing.

“The hearing aids can pick up the difference between patterns of speech and music. This music stimulates their brains and this helps them to learn as we learn through listening,” said Ms Wilkinson.

She added that there were different types of hearing devices that assisted the pupils with the various and individual levels of hearing.

“The sense of sound is often taken for granted and they need to be trained to listen so that they can communicate better. We give the learners hearing with technology and then we train them to learn to listen. With the music going on and off it trains the brain to learn to listen, the presence of sound versus no sound means something,” said Ms Wilkinson.

Seven Steps is the only oral-aural deaf school in the Western Cape that goes up to Grade 12. The school has 104 pupils from the age of three to 21 starting with pre-grade R classes. They get pupils from Carel Du Toit, a school for the deaf in Tygerberg, that only goes up to Grade 3.

“We don’t have a waiting list and kids do join us throughout the year, but we get an intake from Carel Du Toit for Grade 4 children so most kids join us during the primary school intake, it’s not often that we get kids joining us for high school,” said Ms Paioni.

Even though the school is a government funded, they do their own fund-raising to provide clothing and meals for the kids.

“Most of the families are on SASSA grants, they are from impoverished backgrounds so they don’t pay school fees. Traditionally the parents in the form of a SGB would manage fund raising but this duty falls on our teachers. They identify what we need and in their personal capacity take on the fund raising,” said Lee-Ann Kannemeyer, the principal of the school.

The school provides transport for the pupils to and from school and Ms Kannemeyer says it is a huge but necessary task for them as they collect children from townships around the city.

“We have kids coming from as far as Masiphumelele, Delft, Kuils River and we’ve had kids from Kayamandi too. We have four pick up points and parents have to make sure they get their kids to the pick-up points in Khayelitsha, Mitchell’s Plain, Wynberg and in the CBD. We have 14 kids that live at the Eros hostel in Bridgetown that rely on us for transport,” Ms Kannemeyer says.

She adds that they are in need of an occupational therapist and another speech therapist to assist the pupils.

“The kids do need speech therapy and we don’t have the funds to pay for one, so the therapist we have focuses more on the primary school children.”