Inclusion Services

Sensory - Advisory Service: Deafness

Deafness

Our work with families at home, in pre-school placements, schools and colleges of further education

The Advisory Service for children with deafness sits within the Sensory Service. We provide advice and support to children and young people with deafness from birth to 25 years of age.

The aim of the service is to develop knowledge, confidence and expertise in deafness by offering advice and support to families and educational placements, ensuring that our children and young people receive equality of provision to meet their full potential.

We are a group of specialist qualified Teachers of the Deaf (QToD) with additional skills, experience and qualifications in British Sign Language.

Having a broad skill and experience set we work closely as a team to provide the best quality of service to our children and young people, their families and their educational placements. 

How it works

The service takes on deaf children who have been referred by the Audiology Service within the Hywel Dda Health Board. From there the school aged child or young person will be screened through the National Sensory Impairment Partnership framework (NATSIP). Initial contact will be made with schools to carry out either assessments or observation and any subsequent visits will be established to follow up progress of targets and ongoing evaluation of inclusion. For families of pre-school children visits will be made to the home and the pre-school placement to meet with families, care givers and providers.

The team work closely with schools to track progress and ensure that deaf children and young people identified as underperforming are supported as much as possible.  

For children who have a temporary deafness or ‘glue ear’ advice will be given to schools and ongoing support or monitoring offered in consultation with Audiology. For many of these children glue ear will improve over time.

What we offer

• Home visits to support families promoting the early development of communication and language.
• Advice and transition support into EY settings and across all key stages
• Assessment of need or of specific areas such as language development, processing, listening, attention and social skills,
• Monitoring the management of effective use of hearing aids/cochlear implants to maximise access to speech.
• Contribution to the Multi-Disciplinary Audiology Team Meetings, Paediatric Hearing Assessments and Hearing Review Clinics.
• Recommendations on appropriate assistive technology and resources.  For example, radio aids, sound field systems and general acoustics.
• Visits and advice to educational settings.
• Support to families regarding British Sign Language delivered by our QToD’s or by recommended providers
• Bespoke training offered to settings as required
• Access to a range of other support such as the National Deaf Children’s Society and other training such as online courses.
• Close working relationships with our colleagues in health to provide up-to-date audiology information and updates.
• Direct teaching of specialist skills e.g. specific language skills, advocacy skills and understanding of hearing loss/deafness.
• Advice to schools on exam concessions.
• Collaborative work with a range of key partners, such as:

• The Additional Learning Co-ordinators (ALNCo’s) in all Pembrokeshire schools
• Health Visitors
• School Nurses
• Speech and language therapists

Children’s Hearing Services – Hywel Dda Health Board (opens in a new tab)

Cochlear implant Centre – Heath University Hospital, Cardiff (opens in a new tab)

Children’s Hearing Services Working Group (CHSWG) – West Wales (opens in a new tab)

Pembrokeshire College (opens in a new tab)