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THE SCHOOL SECTOR: LINGUISTIC ACCESS TO EDUCATION FOR DEAF PUPILS
4. LINGUISTIC ACCESS FOR DEAF STUDENTS IN FURTHER AND HIGHER EDUCATION
The notion of 'language approach' is less relevant in further and higher education, in so far as it is generally assumed that the whole linguistic access spectrum, from amplification to BSL/English interpretation, will be available to any student who is accepted by any institution. There are currently 43 colleges offering further and higher education courses and 20 HE institutions, funded by the Scottish Funding Council ( SFC).
Historically, a small number of institutions in Scotland were resourced to provide specialist access services for deaf students (eg James Watt college in Greenock and Telford college in Edinburgh). Policy and legislation over recent years has raised expectations that all institutions will provide whatever is required by an individual student, so that they are not disadvantaged by their deafness in accessing the course and institution of their choice.
As will be explored later, it is rare, in Scotland, that a deaf student will be offered the kind of specialist teacher (or tutor) support he or she may have received from a teacher of deaf children at school, whether or not they may have lower linguistic skills than their peers.
Students will usually be expected to be aware of, and to be able to make choices between, a range of options involving assistive technology and/or specialist Language Support Professionals.
A recent study, funded by the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council (now the Scottish Funding Council), explored the linguistic access situations of deaf students in Scottish higher education in 2004. The report was published in 2006 (Brennan et al, 2005). Chapter 12 of the report provides an overview of the complexities of access strategies and key linguistic access issues (op cit: 148-177). The description is presented within a linguistic rather than a medical framework: by first or preferred language and shared experience rather than by level of hearing loss.
Simplistically speaking, linguistic access options can be summarised as in Table 3. How far these options are available in Scotland is explored within sections on further and higher education.
Table 3 Linguistic access options which may be required by deaf students in further and higher education
Options for all deaf students | Specific options for students whose first/preferred language is BSL | Specific options for students whose first/preferred language is English or another spoken language |
- Use of electronic notetaker
- Use of manual notetaker
- Use of speech to text reporter
- Specialist tutorial support
- Use of
| - BSL/English interpreter
- Service of bilingual professionals
| - Personal amplification (hearing aids, cochlear implants, radio aids)
- Environmental amplification (soundfield systems, infra-red and loop systems)
- Good acoustic conditions
- Lipreading
- Use of lipspeaker
- Use of Sign Supported English communicator
|
It is more than likely that the range of access provision available will be different from that which a new student left behind in school. Furthermore, as noted above, the linguistic range of provision at school level is geographically variable. Therefore the extent to which school-leavers will previously have had access to a full linguistic spectrum will also be dependent on which specialist school they went to and/or which service provided support and access at their mainstream school.
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