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Communication Policy

Most children with hearing impairment, who are identified through the neo-natal screening programme, have the potential to acquire a high level of competency in spoken and written language. In recent years this has been facilitated by early identification leading to appropriate amplification and opportunities to develop spoken language through stimulating interaction with parents and others.

On this basis, the Sensory Consortium Service promote the use of an auditory-oral communication approach from diagnosis.

However, it is recognised that there needs to be a degree of flexibility when implementing the communication policy for individual children and their families depending on the individual child and family profile. A child's communication method should promote enjoyable, meaningful communication with other people. Parents should be fully involved in discussions regarding the communication made for their child, including its regular promotion, development and monitoring.

Choices

The development of language in children with hearing impairment will usually follow the same language acquisition process as for hearing children, through meaningful interaction and conversation. Although language may be delayed due to a hearing impairment, for the majority of children with a hearing impairment language acquisition will match other aspects of the child's development. However, individual children with a hearing impairment have a variety of communication needs, and these may change over time. The SCS, together with partner agencies, provides parents of newly diagnosed children with information about methods of communication.

References:
Early Support (http://www.earlysupport.org.uk/)
BATOD (http://www.batod.org.uk/)
NDCS (http://www.ndcs.org.uk/).

Parents can then make an informed choice regarding the approach that is most appropriate for their child's learning and emotional needs.

Broadly speaking communication approaches can be categorised under three main headings: Auditory/Oral, Manually Coded English, and Sign Bilingualism.

The future aims of parents undertaking these approaches might be:

Auditory/Oral

We want our child to speak, write and understand spoken and written English. To attain these will we need to make optimum use of our child's residual hearing and to interact with him/her using spoken language.

Manually Coded English (MCE)

We also want our child to speak, write and understand spoken and written English but we think using a supplementary manual system we can establish a means/ease of communication. Eventually we hope this will lead to fluent verbal conversations.

Sign Bilingualism

I want my child to have his/her easiest/preferred/natural way of communicating, so that they have access to the Deaf Community and functional (perhaps written) use of English. BSL will be their choice for language and communication.

Child's First Language

The majority of children with hearing impairment are born to hearing families and the role of the TOD is to promote opportunities to access and acquire the language of their family, their immediate community and the English language.

It is acknowledged that this approach may not be appropriate for all, and some children may be better suited to alternative means of communication. This will depend upon a variety of factors that can include parental preference, age of onset/diagnosis, degree of hearing impairment and additional difficulties.

The selected approach should be based on the child's communication needs, parental preferences following detailed assessment by all concerned with child's development.

In due course, as the child develops and matures, respect should be accorded to his/her view/choice of, and expressed preference for, a particular mode of communication.

Service Delivery

The Sensory Consortium Service:

Provides the Early Support material and encourages their use.
Works jointly with audiology departments, to obtain an accurate hearing profile in the shortest time possible.
Ensures residual hearing is maximized via carefully selected and maintained hearing aids, cochlear implants, radio aids and soundfield systems.
Gives parents information on the different communication approaches to ensure that an informed choice can be made.
Responds as flexibly as possible to parental choice of communication mode within available SCS resources.
Draws up a care plan for family support through discussion with family and liaison with other interested professionals.
Offers regular home visits to families of pre-school hearing impaired children to support hearing aid use and language development.
Offers a series of playgroup and workshop sessions to support the home programme.
Offers a regular programme of support to hearing impaired children in mainstream schools.
Liaises regularly with all other agencies involved in the linguistic and educational development of each individual child.
Ensures that all teachers working with hearing impaired children are qualified teacher of the hearing impaired or achieved qualified status within three years of joining the Service.
Provides on-going professional development for teachers of the hearing impaired to ensure an up-to-date understanding of child language acquisition, affective/effective work practices with families of young hearing impaired children and current developments in audiological equipment.
Ensures that, when the child is in a position to do so, that his/her views and preferences are sought and acted upon.
Liaises with Education Authorities.
Contributes to statutory processes for those with special educational needs, including assessments, advice and reports.

Programme Evaluation

During all states of the child's linguistic and educational development the programme provided by the Sensory Consortium Service is monitored and evaluated to ensure that the communication approach being offered is appropriate and that the child's potential is being maximized. This is achieved by:

Regular discussion with parents and other professionals.
Use of Early Support material.
Multi-professional pre-school reviews, including Audiology and Speech and Language therapists.
Individual case conferences.
Regular liaison with schools.
On-going assessment of progress using nationally recognised assessment tools.
Attendance at Annual Reviews.
Monitoring of National Curriculum assessments, tests and national examination results.
Regular liaison with EA's through pre-school reviews and school meetings/annual reviews.