Education for people who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing has come a long way since deaf Scottish migrant
Thomas Pattison opened Australia’s first school for deaf children in Sydney in 1860. Today, children with hearing loss have many options including integration into mainstream schooling, learning Auslan and attending stand-alone deaf facilities.
Technology, along with community attitudes, have changed the face of education for people who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing.
The advent of newborn hearing screening has also enabled earlier diagnosis and treatment with cochlear implants or hearing aids. This has transformed deaf education because these early interventions enable infants to hear sounds and learn speech from a young age, improving their chances of better integration into mainstream schooling.
Despite this, and many technological advancements in computers and classroom hearing augmentation systems, extra support for Deaf and Hard of Hearing children is advisable to enable the best chance for equal access with hearing peers.
Yarra Valley Grammar is one school in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs that is an excellent example of how to integrate these children into a mainstream education. In 2022 its Hearing Unit celebrated 50 years of providing additional support to Deaf and Hard of Hearing children.
Its academic success – and success at integration – is evidenced by students travelling from around Australia to attend. One family relocated from Cairns and another student from Tasmania lived in Ringwood during the school term.
Ms Rachel Wilson, a teacher of the deaf who manages the Hearing Unit, explains: “We’ve put provisions in place early, particularly around testing, so they can have success in VCE. In the six years I have been here, all the Hearing Unit students have gone on to their chosen degree. In recent years that has included dentistry, business, commerce, engineering and interior design.”
Wilson, also the school’s director of learning support and individual programs from preschool to year 12, ensures the same systems and structures are in place schoolwide.
In the late 1960s Melbourne woman Mrs Nancy John, who taught her deaf daughter to speak, began working with other families of hearing-impaired children. She formed the Advisory Council for Children with Impaired Hearing in 1968 which ran early intervention programs from her house. John taught children to use what hearing they had through hearing aids and lip read and this evolved to become Taralye early intervention centre.
“In 1972 when Yarra Valley Grammar was an all-boys school, four local families wanted a mainstream education for their deaf sons,” Wilson says. “Nancy John and her group, along with the original staff led by teacher Mr Bill Robinson, were exploring which school would be a good fit. They chose us as we were only five years old and they wanted to embed a facility that would grow with the school.”
Over the years, the unit’s reputation has grown along with its staff, facilities and technology.
“We’re very big on technology so in the Early Learning Centre (ELC) there might be a Roger touch screen being worn by the teacher and as students progress, there are pass around microphones in conjunction with what the teacher wears and a surround sound speaker,” she says.
Students wear radio frequency aids in the classroom and in environments with competing background noise while soundfield technology is used throughout the school to assist with classroom clarity. “We have soundfields in every room with teachers wearing them in every class which benefits all students, not just the hard of hearing,” Wilson adds.
“Today’s technology means we’re closing the gap between hearing peers and students with hearing loss. There’s more tech now, and AI has transformed captioning and transcription and can even summarise lessons for students.”
The intervention model is needs-based with staff constantly monitoring and reviewing where students are at, how they’re going and putting individual goals in place. Students attend regular classes and if they need extra intervention, they receive it.
“Otherwise, we follow that inclusive model where we build the capacity of the classroom teacher to understand their needs,” she adds.
Learning assistance in class includes being guided by the teacher as to what they need, supplementing the program and as they get older, teacher supports are more involved in note taking and support.
A charitable foundation, which provides financial assistance, said when deciding which facilities to support it found Yarra Valley Grammar’s was “one of the best internationally”.
Auditory memory is tracked and if students need auditory training, they receive it. Sometimes it is linked to a cochlear implant and staff support them getting used to the processor.
Deaf awareness is a big thing in the school, with all students taking part in activities such as hearing awareness week and NextSense’s loud shirt day.
“We have a whole team around the child, an occupational therapist, psychologist, speech pathologist, teachers of the deaf and an audiologist to focus on giving them what they need early,” Wilson says.
“Our audiologist Rebekah Vaiopoulos is like one of the staff and she’s just up the road so if anything goes wrong with devices, we can run them up to her, get them fixed and bring them back.”
Meaningful impact
For 19 years, Vaiopoulos, a paediatric audiologist with Hearing Australia in Croydon, has been visiting the school monthly to help the students in the Hearing Unit.
“This was an initiative set up by Hearing Australia and the Victorian Education Department many years ago to support schools with a deaf facility/hearing unit,” she explains.
“I visit monthly and check in with as many students and teachers as possible.
“Tasks will vary from general equipment/ear health checks and troubleshooting to impressions, discussions of advocacy/device use, troubleshooting of various classroom equipment or situations such as Johnny had a problem in science last week. We may visit the space and troubleshoot accordingly.”
Vaiopoulos says she also has discussions about tinnitus, mental health and wellbeing and external supports available to support sense of self and improve deaf identity such as deaf sports.
“We also practise “appointment dialogue” and teachers encourage them to anticipate the types of questions I might ask and the types of answers they may give to describe their problem and ultimately become their own best independent advocate,” she adds.
She does device adjustments and hearing tests on request to supplement services provided by local hearing practitioners, not to replace them.
“Depending on the problem we may be able to provide immediate assistance and if we can, we will,” she says.
“I love liaising with the students and teachers and hope to have a meaningful impact on their hearing journey. It’s most rewarding to see them develop into teens and young adults and achieve their dreams.”
NextSense reaches nationwide
Deaf education began in Australia when seven children enrolled in deaf Scottish migrant Thomas Pattison’s first school for deaf children in Sydney in 1860. The school later expanded to become the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children and in 2021 was renamed NextSense.
NextSense School is a primary school situated at a new centre for innovation on the Macquarie University campus and is custom designed for people with vision and hearing loss. NextSense also houses preschools on site and in Melbourne. It provides early intervention and cochlear implant services for children and adults nationally.
The NextSense Institute also enables research on best practice education to be put into practise on site.
Additionally, the organisation provides support for students who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing and those with vision impairment in 78 mainstream, independent schools across NSW, the ACT and Victoria.
This includes regular classroom visits, assessment and guidance on learning aids and assistive technologies in-person or via telepractice. It also provides training and development for mainstream teachers equipping them with skills to make the classroom more inclusive and to use assistive technologies to support children’s learning. The organisation also trains people to become teachers of the deaf.
The school has purpose-built learning environments and low teacher-student ratios. It uses research to drive new teaching approaches and techniques in its dedicated spoken language, sign bilingual (Auslan and English), and blind and low vision programs for those who are blind, deafblind or have vision loss.
NextSense preschool includes hearing and sighted children learning alongside peers who are deaf, hard of hearing, blind or have low vision. Nominated for a 2024 Australian Childcare Alliance NSW Excellence in Early Childcare Awards, it is leading the way in integrated early learning for children aged three to five.
The facility is custom designed, with features including a bush tucker sensory garden with edible plants, an accessible playground, braille and tactile signage, and state-of-the-art acoustics and lighting to provide optimal learning environments.
Students who attend NextSense School partner with a school of the family’s choice when the student’s skills have progressed and their confidence grown to prepare them for high school. The partnership may involve one to three days a week, progressively increasing, and supports a strong transition to the school of choice.
Alternatively, a partnership program enables students from education systems across the Sydney metro area to attend NextSense one or two days a week to complement their learning in their main school.
In addition to the wraparound support provided to children and families who choose either the bilingual education stream or the spoken language stream, the organisation is also the largest provider of cochlear implants nationwide. It supports both children and adults, having performed more than 7,500 implants.
When NextSense chief executive Mr Chris Rehn started in 1996 only about 12 children a year received cochlear implants in NSW; that has now skyrocketed due to evidence showing benefits of the technology and early implantation, which has flowed onto better schooling integration and success.
“The cochlear implant is the intervention for most children in a significant hearing loss category and it has come down the spectrum, and we’re using it in many more children in moderate to severe categories rather than just severe or severe to profound categories,” Rehn says.
“The great success that we have seen with the implant has guaranteed that it’s been more widely used at different levels of hearing loss with good degrees of success.
“Earlier implantation can lead to language development similar to hearing peers, with proper support and rehabilitation. Incubating best practice is something Australia can really take pride in and while we learn from the world, we also teach the world.”
NextSense, partnering with the Australian Hearing Hub and implant manufacturers including Cochlear, delivers that equal opportunity to 10,000 families a year nationwide, through education, early intervention and cochlear implants.
Rehn says, however, that there’s a national shortage of teachers of the deaf in Australia . Roles and work requirements differ around the country, which influences whether teachers choose to embark on tertiary studies in the field.
NextSense’s Master of Disability Studies offers postgraduate studies to develop knowledge and skills to adapt content, develop teaching methodology, and apply specialised instructional techniques to meet needs of children with sensory disabilities.
The course provides employment opportunities in inclusive education, the disability sector and opportunities to conduct research or complete further study.
The Shepherd Centre
The Shepherd Centre, based throughout NSW, the ACT, Tasmania and Queensland, is another example of a service that has helped thousands of children with hearing loss reach their full potential over the past 50 years.
It offers a world-leading early intervention program for babies, toddlers and preschoolers that gives deaf children the support and skills they need to succeed and thrive at mainstream school alongside hearing classmates.
Its evidence-based early intervention programs aim to help children start mainstream school with listening and speaking skills similar to those of hearing peers. It also has a mentoring program, called Hear for You, for school-aged children and teenagers.
In 2024 about 70 children graduated from the early intervention program and are embarking on their next step – mainstream school. “We’re privileged to support more than 900 deaf children and their families across 10 centres, and remotely online, in NSW, the ACT and Tasmania,” CEO Dr Aleisha Davies says.
For parents who prefer their children to attend a school for the Deaf, there are also options .
For example, three Victorian ‘Schools for the Deaf’ – Aurora School, Furlong Park School for Deaf Children, and Victorian College for the Deaf provide a bilingual (Auslan and English) holistic education.
They support children from infancy to age 18 and enable students to learn from teachers of the deaf with staff comprising deaf and hearing teachers.
Computer technology and hearing interventions also make tertiary education far more accessible for today’s hard of hearing students.
More reading
Hearing impairment no barrier to top HSC marks for cochlear implant recipient
Auslan to be taught as an elective in NSW schools from 2026
NSW school showcases soundfield technology to improve listening
