The Department for Education Early Intervention Service – Deaf / Hard of Hearing is an educational service for families of children with hearing loss. Our service aims to support families as the first educators for their children.
Our unique service is delivered by qualified and experienced Teachers of the Deaf who are highly trained professionals, committed to working with families to help their child to achieve their best.
Our work with families is supported by a highly skilled speech pathologist who has completed a Master’s Degree in Deaf Education, providing a valuable resource to children and families in situations where hearing loss is impacting upon a child’s speech and/or language development.
Our team access a wide range of professional development and educational resources which assess, inform, describe and support your child’s development. As we use these resources with your family, we will explain their purpose and how they help construct the best possible learning opportunities for your child.
The impact of hearing loss upon a child’s language development can be significant and that is why prevention is a key goal of our service. Your child’s language, communication, thinking, emotional well-being and behaviour are observed and closely monitored. We provide strategies and supports which help families ensure their child’s potential is achieved. In consultation with the family, we can develop learning goals and plans, building from the child’s current levels and challenge the child to reach their next developmental milestone. The family are always the most important contributors to their child’s communication and language development.
There are three important and ongoing conversations to consider:
- the learning conversations that the child with a hearing loss is experiencing and engaged in
- the planned conversations that help ensure that the child’s learning is targeted and successful
- the supporting conversations that help the family to be resilient and manage the complexities that happen every day in any family’s life and that are sometimes more stressful because they involve a child with a hearing loss.
Every conversation that a child has is a potential opportunity for learning. Realising that potential is a goal of our service.
Every child is unique in their development and part of the relationship with the family that the team provides is the capacity to nurture each of the conversations described above.
There is a great depth of experience within the team and it is often the case that we will collaborate together to help build solutions to specific situations. When we don’t have an answer- we work together to find one.
The conversations we work to build together with families have the specific purpose of improving outcomes for both the family and the child. We work alongside families to provide successful pathways for development for the child with hearing loss within their family and early childhood/pre-school settings. Our educational knowledge and focus ensure a smooth transition to school.
