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New Zealand Sign Language must be given official recognition as a language or it will die, Deaf Association President Jennifer Brain says.

The New Zealand cricket team beat Australia at the Petone Recreation Ground. You would be forgiven for not knowing the match was on. Media coverage, or rather the lack of it, is a major problem for disabled sport.

Susie Ovens, born 97% deaf, uses mime as one of the many methods to relate to the hearing world. She is also a member of the “Deaf Sign Singers”, a group of 11 deaf people who perform sign language to music.

Four New Zealand deaf athletes are favoured to win medals in swimming, cycling, and badminton. The 112-strong New Zealand team will compete in 11 of the 12 sports.

Deaf students have the right to equal access to tertiary education but who will pay for sign language interpreters?

When Alan Ovens yells at his sister Susie on the basketball court, she never listens. Quite simply, she can't. Susie Ovens is the captain of the New Zealand women's deaf basketball team.

At the basketball, also at Cowles Stadium, the New Zealand women beat Australia, 91-65, to notch the host country's first win in the sport. New Zealand led 45-26 at half-time and is now in the running for the bronze medal.

A field officer for the deaf, Mr David Chilwell, a former president of the Christchurch Deaf Club, has been appointed in Christchurch as a result of a grant from the Lottery Funds Board.

When the 1400 competitors and officials arrive in Christchurch to take part in the World Games for the Deaf, TVNZ's news programme for the deaf will be ready and waiting. The small staff of the weekly programme "News Review" is being boosted by four journalists to cover the events of the three-week games in January.

Twenty-three of the 39 residential care staff at van Asch College were made redundant yesterday as a result of Government funding cuts last year.

Coventry was selected as a sole member of the New Zealand team to attend the July Deaf Olympics in Yugoslavia.

The starting equipment to be used at the Queen Elizabeth II complex is far more sophisticated. It uses a traffic-light type devised by a Christchurch man, Mr Ted Gilliver.

The story of Catholic Deaf-Mute education, what has been done for deaf students by Dominican Nuns, and the new St. Dominic’s School for Deaf Children in Wellington.

People who can hear as well as see 'Reasonable Doubts' (TV3, 9.50pm Saturdays) might be surprised to learn that Deaf New Zealanders can understand deaf lawyer Tessa Kaufman’s sign language little better than they can. ASL, used by Deaf actor Marlee Matlin, is a foreign language here. My Deaf friends give it the thumbs up. But the failure of television in New Zealand to provide anything in NZSL is described as “a running sore” by Hilary McCormack.

The combined Wellington-Manawatu Central Districts team and the first national deaf cricket tournament in Upper Hutt this week thrashed Canterbury by nine wickets in the final, passing its total of 98 after only 13 of the allocated 50 overs.

The deaf Lynndale athlete is endeavouring to gain selection for the forth coming Deaf Olympics to be held in Yugoslavia in July.

The Games will be about the same size as the 1974 sporting extravaganza in Christchurch, the Commonwealth Games. Yet it has been orchestrated on a budget of $700,000 – about one-third of the cost of the opening ceremony planned for the 1990 Commonwealth Games in Auckland.

Stewart Smith who is deaf, has been in teams which have won the New Zealand fours twice, and one of his team has won the Auckland singles three years running.