Deaf children held back by fund gap

The principal of the first preschool for hearing impaired children has said deaf children are been held back from fully integrating with the rest of society.

Maria Allen, of the Mid-West Preschool for Hearing Impaired Children — set up 10 years ago on a voluntary basis — said it is vital preschools become state-funded so that they can continue to give specialist one-on-one language training to the children.

“These children are not getting their full entitlements to preschool education because what we do is specialist,” said Ms Allen. “If they were put into a mainstream preschool, they would not get the specialist early intervention in understanding language that we provide.