Language, listening and communication in the early years.

There are more children being diagnosed and fitted with hearing aids earlier resulting in increased numbers of early years children requiring specialist support. Many settings find themselves wanting to support these children effectively and are actively looking at options for their own awareness development.

The early years are a critical age for deaf children to develop their play and thinking skills and to do this they need access to language. This course will give you an overview of what it is like to be deaf and how deafness can impact on listening, spoken and communication skills, as well as social development.

It will give you some strategies to support the development of speech and language in the nursery classroom by considering how you can make your voice more accessible. The course will enable you to consider how to make the most of everyday routines to develop language and incorporate strategies into daily routines, that will promote learning for the deaf child.

This course will be useful for the majority of deaf children with a full range of deafness, but does not specifically look at the development of British Sign Language. This is covered in our separate BSL course for Early Years.