I have a 4 month old boy with bilateral moderate hearing loss, diagnosed at around 2 months.

We are in the same position, currently looking at nursery options for him.

From my experience so far, it is best to have a very open and honest conversation with the nursery manager about what experience they have in caring for babies with hearing loss, explain any additional care that your baby may need and you will very quickly get a feel for whether or not you would feel comfortable leaving them there.

We have seen quite a few and some places were just like 'yea its fine, we can look after him' whereas others were really making the effort to ask questions about his hearing loss, understand his needs and went to the effort of explaining their level of experience and understanding and detailed all the things they would do to care for him.

Don't be driven by the materialistic  things in a nursery, Anyone can buy a load of toys and put them in a room. It's the people that work there that will be influential in your babies development.

Hi

Something that we came across was the acoustics of the building. Lots of Nurseries are seperate from the main School and some not used for the purpose they were originally intended, think tinny roof and big open plan rooms that make hearing more difficult

Ours moved a lot of things aroung so that my son was in a room with carpets and curtain, as opposed to lino floors and blinds to keep the sound in, on advice from our teacher of the deaf, this may have been updated now though? He was older though

There was a good resource from NDCS that you could give to a School so that they understood more what was required, have you got a copy? There may be a Nursery version now?

Hello, 

I would agree with the comment about accoustics. All nurserys are noisy, that can't be helped when you have a room full of children, but some spaces are definitely better than others. Ideally you want smaller rooms with lower ceilings, rather than large, echoing spaces. Also take some basic deaf awareness information with you and be sure that they take notice of it. Your child will benefit from simple things like direct eye contact but not everyone thinks about these things. You might also be interested to ask if they use any sign language at the Nursery, or visual clues to support language development.

Good Luck! 

Agree with momoftwo , really good points to consider,  my son is now 22!! and things change and improve all of the time,he is in his second year of cyber security at university now , hearing loss /aids hasn't held him back a bit 

Hello all, 

Thank you so much for your suggestions. I have been in touch with the hearing support team who have been amazing in helping me find a setting. 

My local nursery has a lot of experience with hearing loss. There is another child who has hearing aids and one who has just left to go to school with a cochlear implant. 

The hearing support team have been incredible. After I had viewed the nursery they offered to go in and speak to the staff to see if there was any way they could offer support. 

My little boy is now due to start at the end of Sept and my child key worker is going to spend time with the hearing support team to see how best to support, encourage and aid my child. 

I couldn't be happierA