Pioneering study to help deaf children and their families

17 November 2005

A pioneering study is set to help support the development of deaf children identified by the Newborn Hearing Screening Programme (NHSP).

The £500,000 study is funded by the National Lottery through the Big Lottery Fund and is a collaboration between the University of Manchester and University College London, in partnership with the National Deaf Children’s Society (NDCS) and Deafness Research UK (the Hearing Research Trust). The project is called "Positive support in the lives of deaf children and their families".

Permanent deafness from birth can often lead to problems with language, communication and literacy. These in turn can affect a child’s behaviour, quality of life, achievement at school and how the whole family interacts. The three-year project aims to explore how different interventions such as provision of hearing aids, the role of the family and professional support (including education and health services) can affect the development of a deaf child.

Vivienne Michael, Chief Executive of Deafness Research UK, said:

"Recent advances in the field of childhood deafness such as the Newborn Hearing Screening Programme, the Early Support programme and the introduction of digital hearing aids means this is the perfect time to examine what best supports the development of individual deaf children."

Gwen Carr, NDCS Deputy Chief Executive and Director UK Services, said:

"When we find out what leads to the best benefit for these young children we will then be able to establish this in practice all over the UK. This work will mean that we can provide evidence of how support services can really benefit the development of deaf children and lead to them reaching their full potential in life."

John Bamford, lead researcher on the project, said:

"Ultimately, this project could lead to possible policy changes necessary to offer families valuable and relevant support for their specific needs, ensuring a better quality of life for the deaf child and their family.

"One of our hopes for this project is to involve and represent ALL families of deaf children which will include those from ethnic minority communities and families using British Sign Language (BSL)."

The project team will be working with education services to recruit families with deaf children from across England. Parents will be asked to observe their child’s developmental behaviour and interviews will be conducted with some parents during home visits made by researchers. This will enable the team to assess family dynamics, provision of education services and the effectiveness of this and other support for the family.

Regular project updates are available at www.positivesupport.info.

Further information

Sarah Etwell, NDCS Communications Manager
tel: 020 7014 1144
email:

Jo Barber, NDCS Press & PR Officer
tel: 020 7014 1146
email:

Vivienne Michael, Deafness Research UK Chief Executive
tel: 020 7679 8900
email:

Further information on the Newborn Hearing Screening Programme

Miriam Phillips or Debbie Leven
tel: 020 7282 2962
email

Notes to editors

• Three babies are born deaf every day and 90% of deaf children are born to hearing parents with little experience of deafness.
• There are 35,000 deaf children in the UK .
• Deafness Research UK (The Hearing Research Trust) is the medical charity for deaf and hard of hearing people. Since being founded in 1985, Deafness Research UK has secured many radical improvements in the prevention, diagnosis and the treatment of hearing difficulties, including supporting the development of the technique now used in newborn hearing screening.
• The National Deaf Children's Society (NDCS) is the only UK charity solely dedicated to the support of deaf children and young people, their families, and professionals working with them. www.ndcs.org.uk
• The NHS Newborn Hearing Screening Programme (NHSP) aims to identify moderate, severe and profound deafness and hearing impairment in newborn babies. Where the test is currently available parents are offered the opportunity of a hearing screen for their baby. Babies can be tested before leaving the maternity unit but in some cases the test may be carried out at home or at a local surgery or health clinic. Phased implementation of the national screening programme began in 2001 and is expected to be complete by the end 2005.
• The introduction of the NHSP means the average age a child's deafness is identified has fallen to around eight weeks. Before screening was introduced it was sometimes as late as three years.
• The University of Manchester (www.manchester.ac.uk) was formed by the merger of The Victoria University of Manchester and UMIST in October 2004 and with over 36,000 students is the largest higher education institution in the country. Its Faculty of Medical & Human Sciences (www.mhs.manchester.ac.uk) is one of the largest in Europe , with a research income of over £37 million.
• The School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Manchester (www.psych-sci.manchester.ac.uk) was founded in 2004 and comprises the oldest Psychology department in the UK together with Human Communication and Deafness and Clinical Psychology divisions. All were rated 5/5 in the last higher education Research Assessment Exercise.
• Founded in 1826, UCL was the first English university established after Oxford and Cambridge . In the government's most recent Research Assessment Exercise, 59 UCL departments achieved top ratings of 5* and 5, indicating research quality of international excellence.
• The Deafness, Cognition and Language Research Centre (DCAL) headed by Bencie Woll is a major new research centre funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, UK and based at UCL (University College London). The Centre comprises a series of thematically linked research projects on sign language linguistics, language processing, face-to-face communication, language development, atypical sign language, and the deaf individual and the community. The Centre will be launched in January 2006 and over the first five years of its existence we will establish a team of 15-20 researchers, research students and support staff.