Better communication, better data and better outcomes for deaf children

Some festive good news came last week with the publication of a Government action plan on speech and language therapy, called Better Communication. The action plan followed the Bercow review, where the Conservative backbencher MP of the same name led a review on services for children with speech, language and communication needs. The action plan sets out a range of things the Government will do to improve such services.

And, to our surprise, the action plan committed the Department for Children, Schools and Families, to looking into collecting data on all children with special educational needs AND by type of disability from 2011. In terms of deaf children, we currently only have data on how deaf children who getting a high level of support are doing. If the Department goes ahead, this announcement means that for the first time we will have information on how ALL deaf children are doing.

This is a big step forward and is one of the recommendations from our campaign report, Must do better!, on the educational under achievement of deaf children. After all, we cannot improve the attainment of deaf children if it is not being measured in the first place. Better data also arms parents, local authorities and NDCS with the means to work out which schools and areas are doing best and, basically, what works.

On that positive note, I’m off for my Christmas break. Thanks to all for reading this and for their comments – do keep leaving your thoughts on these musings. Otherwise, have a great break and see you in 2009!

Deaf children the losers in the X Factor?

The X Factor final is on tomorrow night! Personally, I will slap the next ten Irish people I meet if Eoghan beats Alexanda to the prize.

One thing is for sure. A deaf person won’t be able to rely on the subtitles to find out who has won. This year, the subtitles on the X Factor have been appallingly bad. Every deaf friend I know who has watched it thinks the same. The subtitles often don’t come on screen until around a minute after it’s been spoken. That is if it’s comes on at all.

ITV would probably say that subtitling errors are inevitable on live programmes. Which is fair enough (though this does beg the question over why if it is absolutely necessary the X Factor has to be shown live). But this doesn’t explain why the subtitles on the repeated shows of the X Factor are also rubbish.

Is anyone taking the quality of subtitles seriously at ITV? As far as I know, there is no real time monitoring of subtitles, in the same way as there is of audio or visual quality. If the picture screws up, the programme is interrupted, an apology is given and some muzak is played. If the subtitles screw up, the programme carries on as normal and you’re expected to write in with details of the errors.

I’ve singled out the X Factor just because it’s a programme enjoyed by lots of deaf children I meet. Their viewing needs are just as important as everyone else. Deaf children shouldn’t be the losers on this programme.

DCSF overload

Today, the Department for Children, Schools and Families has published:

* The Children’s Plan: a one year on progress report, clocking in at 233 pages long.
* 21st century schools: a consultation on how schools need to completely revamp themselves to provide a world class education for every child.
* 2020 Children and Young People’s Workforce Strategy.

This is on top of two other key documents already published this week:

* A play strategy
* Interim report by the Rose Review into the primary curriculum.

Five reports in three days. I chose a bad week to give up caffeine.

But seriously, for a Government that is committed to working with stakeholders, it seems a bit unreasonable to throw five lengthy reports at them in three days and allow them to read, digest and give an informed response. It’s like being bludgeoned by initiatives. And I just work for a charity that needs to follow what’s going on and understand what it means for deaf children. I’m not a teacher or a professional who’s expected to implement it all. It’s impossible.

Well, so far I’ve skimmed the Children’s Report document. It definitely makes for interesting reading and there’s a big announcement on more funding for children with special educational needs. I’ll blog about it when I’ve read it properly. I may be some time if the Government throws out any more reports in the coming days. I have a horrible feeling there may be more to come…

I admire the Government’s zeal to make things better for children. But maybe sometimes less is more?

Getting down with da kidz in Kidderminster

I was in Kidderminster over the weekend at a NDCS event for deaf young people. It was great fun. I even got to bounce about a bit on a bouncy castle, getting down with da kidz, innit.

Anyhow, I took the opportunity to ask the young people there what they wanted the Government to do to help deaf children and young people. Some of the answers that came our way were…

* More subtitles at the cinema. One girl said that she often went to see films without subtitles, just so that she could go with her hearing friends. She’d miss a lot of it, but it was better than waiting ages for a subtitled show, weeks after her friends had all seen it.

* Loop systems that don’t work properly or are not turned on. Loop systems amplify the sound in the enclosed area for deaf children that have a particular ‘T’ switch on their hearing aid. I asked if they challenged shops or places that didn’t have them turned on – but the reply was that this was often a waste of time since the staff didn’t know to use the equipment.

* Deaf aware audiologists. A few mentioned their good experiences but others talked of audiologists who carried on talking even the deaf young person was not wearing their hearing aid. Others talked of audiologists talking to the parent, and not to the deaf child directly.

It was all pretty interesting. Talking directly to deaf young person in this way throws up issues that we hadn’t thought of or hadn’t ranked as a priority. As NDCS moves to becoming a more child-centred organisations, we may begin to campaign on different things than we have in the past…

An end and a beginning for deaf children in Westminster

Last week, the parliamentary year ended. And then this week, a new one began. Nobody did an Auld Lang Syne, though the Queen did dress up a bit and hit the town.

With the end of the parliamentary year, all parliamentary petitions (known as early day motions) were wrapped up and no more signatures could be added to them. So we did a bit of number crunching to see how many MPs supported one or both of the two early day motions that were tabled in the last year on deaf children and education. These were early day motions 592 and 1607. Both called on the Government to take action to close the gap in attainment between deaf children and their hearing peers, and both pointedly pointed out that deafness is not a learning disability.

And the total number of MPs came to…. 156. Considering there are 645 MPs, this is nearly a quarter of all MPs. Since Ministers or anyone with a small part in running the machinery of Government cannot sign an early day motion, 156 is really quite good. I’m pleased. It’s allowing us to say that one in four MPs support our campaign.

But we won’t be looking back. On Wednesday, the Government set out it’s priorities for the future and its legislative plans for the year ahead via the Queen’s speech. NDCS did a news item on this, setting out the Bills that NDCS is going to be paying close attention to. For example, the proposed Equalities Bill might provide us with an opportunity to put forward changes that will benefit deaf children. This will be a big piece of work for us going forward. The proposed Children, Learning and Skills Bill might also be an opportunity for NDCS as well.

So its out with the old and in with the new…

PS Did you spot anything in the Bill that caught you eye or which might positively impact on deaf children? Let us know any thoughts you might have…