Naad is a space where parents begin to understand their child’s hearing loss and where children begin their journey of learning to listen and talk.

These early beginnings are vital to the child’s development of spoken language. Early identification, appropriate amplification and family participation allow the child to develop age-appropriate speech and language skills.

Early intervention allows infants to commence auditory living and gives them opportunities to listen, to learn and to enjoy life. It gives them the freedom of choice.

It allows them to grow up with sound.

Knowing the benefits of early intervention, IHF established Naad: a centre for early intervention.

At Naad we believe that infants born with a hearing loss are similar to hearing infants in more ways than they are different from them. This is the basic principle on which our entire educational programme is based.

In our work with you, we will encourage you to behave and talk with your hearing impaired child as though he were a hearing baby, making certain adjustments that would ensure more effective communication for both of you. This would generate spontaneous conversation between you and your child, which is fundamental to our aural habilitation method. The development of good listening habits in your child is a process that you will be actively involved in. It is important that as your child grows he develops clear speech and a natural speech rhythm.

The process of developing good language and speech skills in your child is a slow one and its pace is set by your child. Every child has his own pace of growth and will give you clear signals when he is ready for the next step. We will help you recognise these signals but to push your child too hard in an effort to make him learn faster is a bad mistake which both of you will later regret. Allow your child the joys of a happy, relaxed childhood and help him make a successful transition to life with his hearing friends, when he is ready for it.

Every child is special in his own way and we believe that our hearing impaired infants are special too. What sets each child apart is not his intelligence or speech skills but the extent to which he is a complete personality. Our work with your child is aimed at helping him achieve this potential, through the combined efforts of our Counsellor, Audiologist and Special Educator. We work together so that your child grows up into a happy, healthy, well-rounded young person.

Naad devotes itself to empowering parents to play a pivotal role in the effective habilitation of their hearing impaired babies. They are provided with the tools which will enable them to become their child’s first teacher of language. Naad emphasises parent-child and extended family-child interaction as a way to create a listening and language rich environment for the child.

The success of the programme is the educational partnership formed with parents and their active involvement in the child’s learning.

A hearing impaired child needs to be immersed in his mother tongue for all his waking hours in order to understand language as an older child. The home environment must be able to provide an enriched language input complete with the finer nuances of language. At Naad we recommend that the language of instruction chosen by the family be one in which the parents are fluent. Naad offers a choice of English or Marathi.

Naad aims:

1. To foster a nurturing environment for all babies and their families who participate in Naad’s programme
2. To facilitate early diagnosis and fitting of appropriate amplification to provide access to spoken language.
3. To provide effective early intervention that will promote the development of age-appropriate listening and speech skills.
4. To work in partnership with parents in a natural and stimulating learning environment.
5. To offer a service that allows families to make an informed choice in the effective audiological and educational habilitation of their child.
6. To place children appropriately in learning environments that best suit their needs.

Facilities @ Naad include

• Lending library for the children which includes books, jigsaws, puzzles, videos
• Kitchenette where cooking as a means of expanding language is done with the children.
• Counseling room
• Center is very well equipped with stimulating teaching aids for children from birth to five years
• Sound treated therapy rooms with high chairs for the babies
• Videos and CDs for parent and professional training
• On-going documentation of our work. This is also used for parent and professional training
• Audiology booths equipped with the latest equipment
• MAPping facilities for cochlear implanted children
• Computer used for making teaching aids