ABSTRACT
The history of deaf education in Britain in this century is one of increasing opportunity in terms of the recognition of individual rights to schooling and a much slower development of the right to choose how the deaf will gain access to information. Kyle and Woll (1985) explain this conflict in terms of the difference between educational aims of ‘normalisation’ and the deaf child’s need to acquire access to information by the most efficient means available. This chapter describes the way in which one Local Education Authority, committed to inclusion for all children, organises support for the pre-school deaf. The approach is ‘bilingual’ and is based on the notion that deaf children and adults are a section of the population who make alternate use of two or more languages. Central to the provision of support for the pre-school group is the widely held belief that early intervention is essential (Riko et al., 1985) and the policy emphasises the need for good quality involvement from the point of diagnosis, with a smooth transfer into formal education. Current practice in the early years will be described in the context of some of the major issues in deaf education in general, and early provision in particular.
