Putting the child before the deafness

Deaf children are first and foremost children, and during childhood their lives will be dominated by their needs as children. A child's deafness does not change these basic needs, but it will require the family to manage the deafness at the same time as looking after their child's physical, social and emotional needs. The Natural Aural Approach seeks to manage deafness in children whilst allowing them to enjoy, and benefit from, normal childhood learning experiences within the family and the family's environment.

Hearing Aids

Hearing aids, and for a few children, cochlear implants, are the key to this modern approach to deafness. Two carefully prescribed, fitted and managed hearing aids worn during all waking hours can provide deaf children, including the profoundly deaf, with a real chance to hear, providing the opportunity to learn through listening in the same way as other children.

Hearing

Using the Natural Aural Approach, children learn through hearing and they are thought of and treated as children who can hear. Their hearing will be different from normal hearing, but experience shows that children can learn to use small amounts of hearing very well to learn to talk, to take part in family life, to follow lessons in school and to make friends.

An Auditory environment

For deaf children to develop their hearing capacity to the full, they need to grow up and learn in a place where listening and talking are the normal way of life. The deaf child can learn to listen and talk in any place where a spoken language is the way people communicate. The use of sign in any form is not recommended whilst children are in the process of learning to talk, either at home or at school.

Normal Speech

Speaking with deaf children should be like speaking with other children of the same age. It should be quick and expressive with good intonation. Normal speech is the easiest to hear, for deaf children too! Trying to speak clearly for the deaf child really makes it more difficult to hear. Children learning to listen need to hear the normal sounds of speech. Our natural gestures and facial expressions are also an important part of our speaking. They help to give meaning to what is being said.

Listening not looking

Children learning to listen don't need to watch - to lipread - because they are learning to hear, using their ears. It is important that they have only one thing to learn - just like ordinary children. Expecting children to look all the time puts their attention on looking not listening. As they grow up, if they find watching helps them to understand, they will let us know. Some find watching very helpful, whilst many children don't need to look unless listening conditions are poor - that's when we all need to look!

Enjoying talk

Talk between an adult and a child is the way children learn to talk. Talking together is probably the most important way we can help children to learn. It is as important for deaf children as it is for all children. Because learning to talk is more difficult for deaf children, because their hearing is less good, they need more talking together. Talking together. with an adult. about ordinary things - which jumper?, what's for dinner? where's daddy?, can I help? - is probably the most important special need of a deaf child - after the fitting of the right hearing aids.

The key to good conversation is sharing - two people, both taking turns, talking to each other. An adult listener encourages child talk, and the more children talk, the quicker they learn to express themselves and the quicker they will learn to produce speech others can understand.

Recognising the deaf child's special needs.

It is important to recognise that it is harder to learn if you are dependent on hearing aids. Deaf children can have difficulty overhearing conversations and do not always catch what was said. They need to be drawn into conversations, have care with their listening conditions and given more chances to listen and talk. They may initially take longer, but with extra help, sometimes lots of it, they can do all the things other children can do.

The Natural Aural Approach doesn't mean

• speaking carefully to deaf children
• expecting children to look when you speak to them.
• touching them to get their attention.
• teaching them how to say words.
• teaching them the names of things
• signing to deaf children