Early intervention in deaf schools for infants with hearing loss

Abstract

As newborn hearing screening tests are widespread today, it is possible to detect infants with hearing loss very early. After detecting hearing loss, it is essential to provide early intervention to the families who have just been told that their babies have hearing loss, in order to support their feelings of being overwhelmed, confused, and isolated. To date, however, intervention for such parents has not been sufficient. Under the circumstances, schools for the deaf need to work with this issue. In our school, the School for the Deaf, University of Tsukuba, we provide various services to support such families with respect to guidance for infant and toddler education, group activities, individual teaching, and guidance concerning hearing aids, etc., all of which must be tailored to individual needs. For intervention toward development of communication skills, we use what are called baby signs, one means of visual communication for infants. We believe it is very important for mother and child to feel confident at communicating feelings to each other, using various means of communication involving all five senses. There is also a need to consider how to organize a network of related institutions in order to provide sufficient early intervention for infants with hearing loss and their families.