Daniel Quintero - one of the 501 people living with a cochlear implant in Cuba - wants to be a computer science teacher to teach those like him who are affected by hearing, he told the Cuban News Agency on Isla de la Juventud today. His condition makes him a good candidate for such endeavors in special education, where communication barriers between teacher and student would be eliminated, said María Antonia Guerra, deputy director general of Education. He stressed that this eighth-grade student in the urban basic high school "Rafael Varona" is inserted in general education - the right of the family to choose the context in which his son will develop - and has an interpreter in sign language, facilitator of their access to the curriculum. Likewise, the group of teachers and the students themselves promote adolescent development in an inclusive environment, she said. For his part, Arasay Pérez, Danielito's guide teacher, alluded to the challenges assumed by the group of teachers when they had a student whose special educational needs they had to attend to, that is why they speak slowly and audiovisual aids are used to facilitate understanding the content taught. He is very good in mathematics and computer science, perhaps that is why he is inclined to be a teacher of the subject in the future, the interpreter is very useful for us, she becomes a link in communication with the student, who at the beginning of joining the school his language was poor, but socialization has helped him a lot, he said. She added that the cochlear implant has not been an impediment for him to integrate, on the contrary, that expensive accessory facilitates his social insertion. The cochlear implant is a high-tech electronic device capable of transforming sound waves into electrical potentials and replacing the inner ear in severely affected patients, which cannot be resolved with hearing aid. Dr. Antonio Paz Cordovés, a pioneer in this type of surgical procedure in Cuba, commented that once the patients are operated on, they undergo a long period of rehabilitation that can extend up to five years. This type of sound neuroprosthesis allows children with profound deafness, of cochlear origin, to develop oral language, an effort made by Cuba to guarantee this legitimate right.
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