Advisor on Deaf Children

Cherry's passion for deaf education

Cherry, an Advisor on Deaf Children (AODC) for GSE, has worked in deaf education for more than 40 years.

As a young woman, Cherry felt drawn to deaf education, after training to be a primary teacher and teaching for a just a year.

"It was an instinctive thing, I'd enjoyed working at Kimi Ora, a school for children with special education needs, during my teacher training, and having a brother with special education needs meant I felt passionate about the rights of people with disabilities," says Cherry.

But it was Michael Parsons, a lecturer who taught Cherry's six-month adviser on deaf children course in Christchurch, who really inspired Cherry to develop a career in deaf education.

"He was a delightful man. He used humour and kindness to build relationships with children and families, helping them understand the complexity of audiology and making them feel like their child was the best child in the world - I learned a lot about excellent practice from him," remembers Cherry, now an adviser on deaf children for the Ministry of Education, Special Education (GSE).

During Cherry's career in deaf education, she has taught at Kelston's Deaf Education Centre, as a teacher of the deaf, and has worked in London, teaching in a school for deaf children and supporting deaf learners in their homes and early childhood education centres as a peripatetic teacher of the deaf. She has been an Adviser on Deaf Children, based in New Zealand, since the mid-60s.

Working with Cherry - the process

Cherry works with children, diagnosed with sensori-neural or long-term conductive hearing loss, who are likely to need hearing aids, from the time they are diagnosed until they leave secondary school. She works with staff and students based in more than sixty early childhood education centres, primary and secondary schools.

Most children are referred to Cherry by their health sector audiologist. Sometimes, a child might be referred to Cherry by an ear, nose and throat specialist. But to be seen by Cherry, a child must have had a full audiological assessment by an audiologist.

Once a referral is made, Cherry talks with a child's support team to find out what service she might provide, where she will provide it and how she might provide it.

A child's support team can be made up of their mum, dad, teachers, teacher aide, caregivers, wider whānau and other specialists such as a child's audiologist, itinerant teacher of the deaf, deaf resource person or speech-language therapist (or any other GSE specialist). Cherry works closely with a child's wider support team during each step of her process.

Cherry's initial support can include accompanying a child and his or her family to audiologists' assessments. She might also spend time with a child's family, helping them understand how children's language develops. She talks to parents about the vital role they play, the terms audiologists use, and the characteristics of deafness itself. For example, she often shows parents a video that explores the effects of hearing loss from the perspective of someone who is deaf. And she talks to parents about how deaf children can learn to communicate and understand.

As part of a child's education support team, Cherry talks to parents and teachers about their education goals for a child. Do they want to trial a hearing aid so that a child can better learn in class, if so, what type of hearing aid is best suited to the child and their learning environment? She might ask them if they want to find out about learning sign language or if they want information about cochlear implants. (Cochlear implants are small, complex electronic devices that can help to provide a sense of sound to a person who is profoundly or severely deaf).

As part of a child's support team, Cherry helps develop education programmes, suggesting teaching strategies that might be used to support a child's learning and setting learning goals.

Cherry also helps schools apply for the specialised equipment or technology their students need to learn (an FM radio hearing aid, for example) ensuring the technology is trialled and used appropriately and that it achieves the desired result.

Cherry works with children's support teams to monitor, review and adapt education programmes for as long as a student needs and as long as they are eligible for Cherry's service.

Working with Ministry therapists - a point to note

It's important to note that Ministry of Education, Special Education (GSE) Advisers on Deaf Children work with children and young people with a range of needs, for example, they work with children and young people assessed as having `mild', `moderate', `moderate to severe', `severe' and `profound' hearing loss. They adapt what they do to suit the needs of individual children and young people, the needs of families, whānau, educators and specialists, and to suit the context in which children and young people live and learn. They also adapt the way they work as new research evidence emerges and as their knowledge and experience grows.