With almost fifty children graduating from Australia’s Shepherd Centre after learning to listen and talk from infancy, here are some reports about their start in mainstream education.
Gearing For Mainstream School From The Start
At the Shepherd Centre, many of these children learned to listen and talk with their families after their hearing issues were detected at, or near birth. Over 90% of the centre’s graduates have spoken language skills equal to, or better, than hearing peers of the same age. Many, like Jovern, are bilingual in spoken English and their family’s native spoken language.
Australian Hearing shares the stories of five-year-old Nadia Slee and Mia Tinnessen to show how the centre facilitated their start in mainstream school education at age-relevant level.
Australia’s World Lead In Spoken Language
Many reports from Australia on this website, show the country’s focus to infant intervention and early spoken language teaching. In fact some deaf education units at mainstream schools provide auditory-verbal teaching, to reinforce daily lessons with hearing pupils at the school – during which classroom captions may be provided if pupils are fortunate.