MESHGuides

Reading is a complex cognitive skill that involves the extraction of meaning from printed or written text. It changes lives. Its transforming power is seen in promoting health and well-being. It builds creativity and imaginative skills. It promotes empathy and understanding. It makes a significant contribution to pupil attainment and closing the gap, especially for disadvantaged learners. It allows access to the whole curriculum and learning in Primary schools and remains one of life’s joys.

There are various online forums for Teachers of the Deaf and parents of deaf children, in the UK and other parts of the world.  The British Association of Teachers of the Deaf (BATOD) manages an email forum.

You are welcome to join the online community to keep in touch with other developments, please register to join the MESHConnect general online community. 

Further research into the national picture of Educational Audiologist provision across the UK would be beneficial to highlight areas where these skills are not in place or stretched to capacity due to lack of funding or available expertise.

The inclusion of an Educational Audiologist in Service provision can have a long term positive impact on the achievement of deaf children and young people. Promoting multi-disciplinary working with health and other agencies results in improved communication and enhanced provision. Keeping a breast of on going changes in technology can be challenging for professionals following their initial training. An Educational Audiologist can provide the vital link in future proofing a Service, by providing continual professional developments and updates to Teacher of the Deaf and other professionals.

Information relating to Educational Audiology internationally has been provided in this guide. The focus on training and most dissertation studies are related to research in the UK.

Further research and data collection would be beneficial to consider the role of the Educational Audiologist across local authorities in the UK. There is much variation in terms of the Educational Audiology time provided in different authorities and how this relates to the size of the authority and the number of deaf children supported. Further research would no doubt show that provision is not equitable across the UK, with some areas benefiting from significantly more Educational Audiology time than others.

Rosenberg, Underwood, Turner and Whyte in 2016 presented a poster to the British Academy of Audiology Conference entitled Acoustics, Listening and Learning MESHGuide: Translational research for improving signal to noise ratio.  This undertook to introduce MESHGuides as a resource for audiologists accessing educational translational research.