blind and deaf Deaf and blind, man learns to 'speak' by touch and dreams of attending college

Deaf and blind, man learns to 'speak' by touch and dreams of attending college

Man learns to 'speak' by touch

Every morning, artisan André Luiz Siqueira, 38, prepares breakfast for the family in Ribeirão Preto (313 km from São Paulo). He sits at the table with his wife, Adriana Moreira Siqueira, 43, and her daughters, Maria Fernanda, 8, and Maria Gabriela, 2.

The conversation between them, however, is different. As André does not hear, does not see and does not speak, he communicates by touch, by "reading" the signs of pounds touching the woman's hands.
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Diagnosed with Usher Syndrome -her hereditary disease characterized by hearing loss and progressive loss of vision-, the artisan lost his hearing as a baby.

His vision was compromised in his teens until, at age 22, he was totally blind. "I remember the day I lost my sight, I went to the bathroom and I noticed my mother at the door, I saw only her figure and I started to cry," he tells the report through pounds, translated by the woman, her constant interpreter.

CHILDHOOD

As a child, without having been introduced to the Braille to be able to read and write, he relied on lip reading and a few gestures of pounds he learned in school to express himself.

Without much encouragement in the classroom and at home, he spoke little. He tried treatment with speech therapists to insert himself, but there was no evolution. André can only make noises.

When the blindness came, he went into depression. In the house where he lived with his parents, in the rural area of ​​Ribeirão Preto, the contact was limited to family members and some friends.

As time went by, André was learning, alone, to feel hands to know what they were talking about.

"I had to adapt, the people around me started to translate for me, with their hands, what they wanted to say, I understood that I could lead a normal life," he says.

It was thanks to the woman that reading by the touch of pounds evolved to the point where he understood all the words.

SUPPORT

In 2006, at age 26, André entered a special education center focused on the job market.

There he became fluent in pounds and learned to wash cars in one of the workshops.

That same year, he met Adriana. She, who participated in a social project of communication in pounds, visited the center to meet the students. He fell in love with André, "almost immediately."
"Seeing him, deafblind, with that willpower to learn things, touched my heart too much. I felt an inexplicable love," he says.

Attentive to her husband's development, she enrolled him in the council of the blind to learn braille.

DREAMS

Adriana, who has already taken courses in baking, handicrafts and gardening, joined the faculty of letters. This year he began a graduate degree in pounds. "I am grateful to Adriana, because she is my eyes, she interprets the world for me. I have no sadness inside me," says her husband.

André, who attended the undergraduate classes with his wife, now also dreams of studying letters or pedagogy. "I would accompany her, sometimes I would read some books in Braille. I could understand many things in class because she translated for me."

In addition to being a craftsman, he says he knows how to cook, make electrical installations and gardening. He expects to be fluent in Braille - only literate in pounds - to be able to enter a college.


In the future, he plans to develop a project for deafblindness like him - there is no official statistic measuring that population in the country. "I would like to teach the families that live with them. I really want to be a teacher someday."