Visual Impairment (VI) and Hearing Impairment (HI) in childhood include sight and hearing difficulties and sometimes a combination of both (known as multi-sensory impairments).
Most children with VI attend their local school with specialist support from a local authority service; some go to a mainstream school that is specifically designated for blind and partially sighted pupils; others go to a special school for blind pupils.
Those with VI and additional or complex needs will probably attend a special school.
Wherever pupils with VI are educated, it is essential to provide a range of educational and social opportunities to enable them to participate on an equal basis with their fully sighted peers. Some will need minimal adaptations; others may have substantial needs.
When considering what’s best for your own child, look for a school that’s inclusive, positive and welcoming to all children, especially those with diverse or special needs.
Ideally seek a school where:
Hearing loss in childhood may be genetic in origin or acquired. It is either sensorineural (of the inner ear and nerves) or conductive (outer ear). Sensorineural deafness is permanent, whereas conductive loss can fluctuate with conditions like glue ear. It is possible for a child to have a mix of both. If one ear is affected, it is called unilateral or one-sided hearing loss; if both ears, it is known as bi-lateral. For educational purposes, pupils are regarded as having a hearing impairment if they require hearing aids/adaptations to their environment and/or particular teaching strategies in order to follow the curriculum.
Children with a hearing impairment range from those with a mild hearing loss to those who are profoundly deaf. Very few children have no useful hearing. Some pass the hearing screen tests in school but are subsequently labelled lazy or disruptive because mild hearing loss has gone undetected. Deafness alone is not defined as a special educational need; approximately 40 per cent of deaf children in UK are not formally recognised as SEN, however, deafness is common in other conditions and syndromes eg Down’s Syndrome. Those with a significant loss may communicate through sign language such as British Sign Language (BSL) instead of, or as well as, speech.
It isn't always easy to spot a child with a hearing impairment but indicators include:
Some pupils may prefer to be placed in a school with a specialist HI unit attached and specialist teachers, or in a specialist school for the deaf. These offer a range of services such as speech and language therapy, or specialist equipment such as group hearing aids. Some local authorities will have a team of Teachers of the Deaf who visit mainstream settings.
There is a hotly disputed divide between those who believe that deaf children can be taught to speak using auditory-oral approaches (assisted by hearing aids, Cochlear implants, radio aids etc) and be integrated into mainstream society, and those who believe they should be taught through sign language. What suits your child best may depend on the method of communication in the home, the degree of hearing loss and how their peers relate to them.
Children with multi-sensory impairment have both visual and hearing difficulties and are sometimes referred to as deaf-blind. Many have additional disabilities or medical conditions, and most will attend special schools.
Because they cannot learn by seeing or hearing and cannot use one sense to compensate for lack of the other, their experience is limited to the here and now. They need substantial extra help to learn and form relationships. They need approaches that make use of what sight and hearing they do have, as well as their other senses, such as touch.
But with the right support they can learn to make use of the senses they do possess and develop the confidence to form relationships, be curious and interested in the world around them.
What matters to your child with special needs or learning difficulties is finding the school that best suits them as an individual and will give them the best chances in life.
Need help? Perhaps you suspect your child has some learning difficulty and you would like advice on what you should do. Or perhaps it is becoming clear that your child's current school is not working for him or her, and you need help to find a mainstream school which has better SEN provision, or to find a special school which will best cater for your child's area of need. Our SEN consultancy team advises on both special schools, and the mainstream schools with good SEN support, from reception through to the specialist colleges for 19+. Special Educational Needs Index
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