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ten Infants children, eight reached their seventh birthday by September and
therefore were educationally classed as 'Juniors'. They were all diagnosed
as being deaf and therefore could not be expected to attend the partially
hearing Junior Unit. A Junior Deaf Unit was therefore established in the
Infants' School. The remainder of the children were divided into an Infants
Class (of six deaf children) and a Nursery Class (beginning with six and
rising to ten Nursery Age children of whom there were four partially hearing
and six deaf children). Further reorganisation has resulted in the present
system (December 1970) whereby the Junior Unit had one child removed
(possibly for attendance at Larchraore School for Maladjusted Deaf Children)
and has admitted two of the older Infants children making a total of nine
deaf children; the partially hearing children (six children ranging in age from
3-6) are educated in one Unit and the deaf children (eight children ranging
in age from 3-7) are educated in the other. Each Unit has its own qualified
Teacher of the Deaf and there is another 'floating' qualified Teacher of the
Deaf available for help by each of the Units. The two Units containing the
younger children each have a Nursery Assistant.
Junior Deaf Unit, Kingsley Infants' School
This class began in September 1970 and contained eight children with
hearing losses ranging from profoundly deaf into the region often called
severe partial. The Peters Senior Trainer was well able to provide maximum
help to these children and was extensively used together with the group
aid.
As well as a wide range of hearing loss type there was an extremely
wide ability range.
For this reason an early introduction of an integrated school day was
made so that the vitally important child orientated individual and small
group work could be effectually followed.
Space precludes a detailed survey of the range of work followed in the
first term of the new unit. In number work, decimal money was introduced and
within the ability range was happily accepted by the children.
Speech is rightly an important priority. Several children had excellent
articulation in test situations. For them phrase/sentence work was desirable
to improve speech which rapidly degenerated under the stress of
communication as we understand it. This is natural and several years of
steady work are needed. Other children had much more severe problems of
communication, and for them the emphasis was on vocabulary revision and
extension based upon home and school, speech reading and speech
production.