Symbolism as an expression of religious spiritual development amongst the deaf

Data provided by Indian Census 2011 point to a staggering population of 18 million deaf people in the country. It becomes imperative to explore how the deaf integrate religious spiritual development in their lives since disability of hearing and speech adds an extra brunt on the psyche by limiting its linguistic expression. The essence of religious spiritual development can be understood as the faith that drives a person and guides him or her in times of happiness and grief. Religious spiritual development has been mostly studied amongst the able-bodied and it becomes essential to understand how the congenitally deaf integrate it in their lives. The participants in the study were 40 deaf children and 40 able-bodied children age ranging (10–16?years). The main aim was to explore the religious spiritual development of these children via theme-based content analysis of drawings. Results reveal unique patterns of symbolic manifestations for the two groups.