If your child has permanent hearing loss, getting help early will give them the best chance of success.
You can do this by choosing an early intervention service, and by talking to Australian Hearing audiologists about hearing devices for your child.
Early intervention services help your child's development from birth to starting school. Each one offers a different way of helping your child with their speech and language.
Early intervention services include:
Your family support facilitator can help you decide which services are best for your child. You can change services if you think another communication approach is better for them.
Watch our video and learn why early intervention can help your baby or young child.
You can find a list of early intervention services in the Queensland Hearing Loss Family Support Service — Possibilities and Pathways.
It also has information about each service and the different types of therapy they offer. For example, some support children with hearing aids or hearing implants. Others use sign language (Auslan) to support children who need to use sign language.
Watch our videos and listen to grandparents, Barry and Margaret, and mother, Kyleigh, talk about their experiences with early intervention services.
You can talk to your family support facilitator or another health professional about getting help early for your child's speech and language skills and Auslan skills. They may talk to you about the following options.
Developing spoken language through listening
This therapy teaches children with a hearing loss to listen and speak. Auslan is not taught in this approach.
Learning Auslan can help all children speak and listen, and helps children with hearing loss communicate if they are unable to hear spoken language.
Auslan and Spoken / Written English
Some families come from a hearing background and have spoken language as their first language. Others come from a deaf background and have Auslan as their first language.
Bilingual and bicultural therapy teaches Auslan and English as equal languages. This approach supports a child to learn Auslan and spoken English together. Many parents who use Auslan as a first language wish to teach their own children Auslan.
The Healthy Hearing Family Support Service helps families with babies or children who have a permanent hearing loss.