CONSTRUCTION OF a new Community Village for Deaf People is due to begin next month, on the site of St Joseph’s School for Deaf Boys on the Navan Road in Dublin.
The first phase of this “state-of-the-art campus”, being developed by the Catholic Institute for Deaf People (CIDP), includes a centre for deaf education, which parents will be able to turn to for co-ordinated information, resources and support.
The CIDP is the trustee of both the girls’ and boys’ schools for the deaf in Cabra, which currently have a total of 140 pupils, and it is proposed to amalgamate them in the second phase of the Village project.
In the absence of centralised information and resources, parents are currently getting advice from different sources and then making decisions for their child, says Liam O’Dwyer, chief executive officer of the CIDP.
“We feel people are taking decisions without realising the longer-term implications of those decisions. What is critical is not to look at just the next three or four years for your child but where your child is going to be when they are 15, 20, 25 – what community are they going to be with. Also from a friendship point of view – these are big issues.”
In addition to the schools in Cabra, there is a school for the deaf in Limerick and special deaf units within 12 primary schools around the Republic.
O’Dwyer says the best advice, based on the latest research, is that deaf children should be taught bilingually, learning to communicate both orally and in sign, to enable their cognitive development. “If that cognitive development is impaired early on, it takes a long time to repair.”
Deafness falls on a wide spectrum, from profound deafness to hard of hearing, so individual needs and capabilities vary, he says. “That is where specialist schools are so important as they can play to the needs of the individual, whereas in mainstream that is much more difficult – unless you put a lot of resources in.”
The “idiosyncrasy” of our education system, he says, is that students with hearing loss can have good support at primary and also at third level, but the deficit seems to be in post-primary.
“We are not undermining the mainstream approach,” he stresses, “but it is much easier at primary to deliver supports to a deaf child with one teacher in the classroom.
“When you go to second level that becomes really complex and difficult. It comes at a time when the child is developing their personality, their communication, their social interaction, and deaf children can find themselves outside.”
However, “for some children mainstream works and there is no doubt about it”, he adds.
It certainly worked for Caroline Carswell (39), who was born in Dublin and was diagnosed with deafness at 16 months. She attended mainstream schools at both primary and secondary levels, studied history in Trinity College Dublin and later worked with Oxford University Press in the UK.
She established Irish Deaf Kids (IDK) in 2007 because she believed parents and teachers lacked information about mainstream schooling for deaf children.
“IDK passionately believes parents need to know about mainstreaming as an option,” she says. “This way, the child can live at home with their parents and siblings and know the neighbours, instead of having to travel to Dublin to a school where the language may be different to their own family setting (many parents dont learn to sign).”
In addition to information on its website, Irish Deaf Kids organises information sessions about mainstream education for parents and interested professionals – the next one being on March 4th in Dublin city centre.
She describes as “very unfair” the current situation whereby the level of educational supports offered to deaf children depends on where they live.
Mainstream may not be ideal for children who have a learning difficulty along with deafness, she says. They are likely to have difficulties keeping up with peers and would certainly need classroom support.
“For a child with deafness only, the issue is more clear-cut because deafness is not an actual learning disability, and does not reflect a childs nascent intelligence.”
She urges parents to think about a childs entire education from the outset, because educational decisions made before primary level affect later outcomes.
“For instance, if a deaf or hard-of-hearing child starts in a specialist primary school, their friends may all be deaf and/or hard-of-hearing, and the educational delivery is tailored accordingly.” Most children starting in this environment would find it almost impossible to transfer to a mainstream school.
“Conversely, starting a child in a mainstream primary school boosts the chances of their moving to local secondary-level with peers from primary school, and friends from their neighbourhood, just like any other child.” They will be used to lip-reading and managing in a mainstream classroom.
“A mainstream education with hearing peers prepares a child for how life will be, outside of education, while learning the coping skills along the way.”
By post-primary level, parents will have a better idea of their childs aptitudes, she adds, and be better able to know which school would be best.
