New guide seeks to ease deaf teenagers’ move to adult services

A new guide for professionals, aimed at smoothing the challenging transition deaf children face from children’s to adult audiology services, has been published by NDCS.

The move from paediatric to adult audiology can be a daunting experience for deaf young people, often taking place at the same time as changes in their physical, psychological, social and educational development.  Deaf young people may also be making the transition while taking exams, starting university or going into work for the first time.  These demands on teenagers can make the move to adult services even more challenging, and NDCS has published new guidelines to help professionals guide the deaf young people they work with through the process.

The NDCS guide Quality standards in transition from paediatric to adult audiology services: guidelines for professionals working with deaf children and young people brings together themes from the latest literature on transition, examples of best practice and signposts readers to key resources.

Vicki Kirwin, Audiologist & Development Manager at NDCS, said: “We know that the shift to using adult audiology services can be very unsettling for many deaf young people, so we have created this guide to help audiology services ensure that the move is made as painless as possible. 

“Deaf young people may be getting support from a range of services across health, education and social care. It can be particularly challenging when, for example, the young person has been going to a specialist children’s hospital to get a service, but the adult counterpart is located elsewhere. Or when the young person has moved to a new area for college or university. It is a time when deaf young people can easily fall into a gap between services and find themselves without support.”

NDCS’s guide advocates the need for services to work together, to prevent professionals from duplicating each other’s work, but also to ensure that each professional working with a deaf young person is aware of the all the changes that a young person might be going through.

The guide is available for free from NDCS’s freephone helpline 0808 800 8880.