A ground-breaking research paper, “Giving Voice to the Deaf Community: Co-designing a Bangla Mental Health Sign Language Bank in Bangladesh,” published on Wednesday in The Lancet Psychiatry to mark the International Day of People with Disabilities, sheds new light on the mental health experiences of the Bangladeshi deaf community.
The study highlights widespread stigma, isolation, denial of care, difficulty expressing emotions, and a lack of accessible mental-health support.
One of the most significant findings was the absence of mental-health vocabulary in Bangla Sign Language, which directly led to the development of the country’s first Mental Health Sign Language Bank.
A hidden crisis: Deaf communities and mental health
For decades, deaf and hard-of-hearing people have faced not only communication barriers but also deep, systemic mental-health neglect globally.
Research shows that deaf individuals experience higher rates of depression, anxiety, social isolation and trauma than hearing populations. Yet their needs often remain invisible due to a lack of appropriate communication tools and culturally informed services.
In Bangladesh, where an estimated 9.6% of the population is deaf or hard of hearing, making it the country’s second most common disability - many deaf individuals have never had a way to express emotional pain, psychological distress or crisis in their native sign language.
As the new study by researchers from Monash University, Australia, in collaboration with Team Inclusion Bangladesh, reports, this “structural silence” has kept suffering hidden, support inaccessible, and mental wellbeing unaddressed.
Breaking the silence: The first Bangla mental health sign language bank
This began to change in 2023, when a cross-disciplinary team led by Dr M Tasdik Hasan worked alongside deaf community members, caregivers, sign-language interpreters and mental-health professionals to co-design digital tools tailored to deaf mental-health needs.
The result was the first-ever Bangla Mental Health Sign Language Bank, launched in Dhaka in early 2025.
The freely accessible digital platform features over 60 co-designed signs for concepts such as “mental health,” “panic,” “withdrawn,” “mind care,” and “stress.”
“This sign bank gives deaf individuals a language to express feelings many of us take for granted,” said Dr Tasdik, the study’s lead researcher. “It empowers them to talk about mental health, normalises emotional expression, and opens the door to care and conversation.”
The development process centred deaf voices- ensuring each sign reflects lived experience, cultural context and linguistic accuracy.
Voice, visibility, and hope: What this means for mental-health equity
For many deaf Bangladeshis, the new sign bank is more than a resource - it is a lifeline. “Before this, we only had signs for sadness, joy, pain and liking,” said a participant. “Now we can talk about depression, panic, mental care - feelings we never had words for.”
By creating a shared emotional vocabulary, the sign bank breaks open a long-standing barrier to mental-health recognition.
It validates deaf emotional experiences and strengthens pathways to counselling, crisis care, family understanding and inclusive policymaking.
The initiative has already attracted global recognition. The Mental Health Commission of Canada named it one of the eight global ideas changing lives. It has also received a Digital Mental Health Leadership Excellence Award among other accolades.
The project offers a transformative model for low-resource settings worldwide where marginalised, linguistically diverse communities continue to face major barriers to mental-health communication and care.
As Dr Tasdik notes: “Digital tools like this don’t just translate language - they transform lives. They give voice to pain, hope to hearts, and dignity to minds that have long been ignored.”
With this bold step forward, the long-standing silence surrounding deaf mental health may finally begin to break- through signs, solidarity and support.
