How is additional support provided?

If your local authority (LA) agrees to assess your deaf child and decides that they have additional support needs, the LA must provide adequate and efficient additional support to meet these. For more information about additional support for learning in Scotland, visit the Enquire advice service website.

This will usually be in the form of one of the plans below. The names of these plans may be different, depending on your LA.

Child's Plans

Some deaf children and young people need additional support to meet their wellbeing needs. In this case, the LA would suggest a personalised Child's Plan. A Child’s Plan is part of the Getting it right for every child (GIRFEC) policy and sets out the needs of the child and how those needs should be met.

It must be used by all the professionals who work with a deaf child or young person who need additional support to meet their wellbeing needs. If a child has both a Child's Plan and an Individualised Educational Programme (IEP) or Co-ordinated Support Plan (CSP), information from their IEP or CSP can be included.

Individualised Educational Programmes (IEPs)

For some deaf children and young people, an individualised educational programme (IEP) is needed. This may be called different things depending on where you live. For example, it may be called an Individual Learning Plan (ILP), Individual Support Plan (ISP), Additional Support Plan (ASP), Wellbeing Assessment Plan or another name.

Whatever it’s called, it provides detailed planning for learning. An IEP describes in detail:

• the nature of a deaf child or young person’s additional support needs (ASN)
• the ways in which these are to be met
• learning outcomes to be achieved
• specifies the additional support that’s required, including support required from agencies other than education (health or social services).

Co-ordinated Support Plans (CSPs)

A Co-ordinated Support Plan (CSP) is a legal document for children with significant long-term, complex or multiple needs requiring support from multiple agencies. These agencies include education, health or social services. Most deaf children, without complex needs in addition to their deafness, won't meet the support needs eligibility criteria. Read our information about deafness and additional needs.

If your deaf child has complex needs in addition to their deafness, they may be able to get a CSP. They can sometimes be difficult to get, visit Enquire's website for more information about obtaining a CSP.

As CSP is a legal document, which helps to coordinate the multiple agencies supporting your child, all LAs must follow the same detailed rules and regulations. Once the LA has agreed to create a CSP it has 16 weeks to produce it. You’ll usually be invited to a meeting along with other professionals to discuss what should go in the CSP. The LA should then send you a draft of the CSP to approve.

A CSP will include information on:

• the child or young person’s strengths
• why they have additional support needs
• their educational objectives
• what support is needed to help them achieve their objectives
• who will provide this support
• details of the person responsible for coordinating their plan
• any other additional information.

Your child’s CSP should be reviewed at least once every 12 months.

You have the right to appeal to the Additional Support Needs Tribunal if the LA decides not to carry out an assessment for a CSP or if you’re not happy with the contents of the CSP.

Transition planning

Transition is the name given to the time when your child is moving from one stage of their life to another. For example, moving from primary to secondary school.

Whatever the reason for the transition, the LA has a duty to do some form of transition planning for children or young people with additional support needs. The LA should begin to gather information and views from any professionals who have been working with your child at each transitional stage:

• starting pre-school (six months before)
• pre-school to primary (six months before)
• primary to secondary (12 months before)
• changing school for another reason (e.g. moving house; school closure, etc.)
• leaving school (12 months before).

How additional learning needs can be met

• Teaching methods such as an auditory-oral approach, sign language or total communication to make sure the child can access the full curriculum.
• Support from a Teacher of the Deaf (ToD).
• Speech and language therapy.
• Support from a learning support assistant (with experience of working with deaf children) for literacy based subjects.
• Support from a communication support worker (CSW).
• Provision of radio aids at all times (both in and out of school).
• Provision of technology to allow direct input from the television and video into hearing aids or cochlear implants. Notes of the contents of videos to be provided in advance and all videos to be subtitled.
• Background noise kept to a minimum and the classroom to have the best possible acoustics to cut out echo and sound bouncing back from floors, walls and ceilings.