Auditory Verbal Therapy

Sally-Ann Hart Excerpts

Tuesday 12th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Sally-Ann Hart (Hastings and Rye) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the provision of auditory verbal therapy.

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairwomanship, Dame Maria. There are about 50,000 deaf children in the UK, with over 7,000 under the age of five. They face the prospect of lower academic achievement and lower employment and are at a high risk of poor mental health, bullying and social exclusion. But it does not have to be this way: when deaf children and their families have access to early, effective support, opportunities are transformed.

Expanding opportunities for children with special educational needs, including deaf children, so that they can reach their full potential is really important to them, their families and us as legislators. Early support should be available to all deaf children, whether their parents choose to communicate with spoken language, sign language or both.

Auditory verbal therapy is an early-intervention strategy rather than a communication approach in itself. It is a family-centred coaching programme that equips parents and care-givers with the tools to support the development of their child’s listening and speaking. The robust, evidence-based specialist therapy supports deaf children to process the sound they get from their hearing technology, such as cochlear implants and hearing aids, and to develop language so that they can learn to talk like their hearing friends.

Deaf children in the UK currently face a lifetime of disadvantage without access to early and effective support. Less than 10% of deaf children who could benefit from auditory verbal therapy can currently access it. Auditory verbal therapy is delivered by speech and language therapists, audiologists and teachers of the deaf who have undertaken around three years of additional training and have qualified to become internationally accredited listening and spoken language specialists. It is usually delivered in a child’s first three and a half years, when the brain’s connections for processing sound are developing fastest. The National Deaf Children’s Society notes:

“Professionals who promote AVT believe that by working intensively with children in their early years they will require much less support as they get older.”

Specifically, it notes:

“Its aim is to ensure that deaf children develop age-appropriate language by the time they start school.”

Although the UK has one of the best newborn hearing screening programmes in the world and state-of-the-art hearing technology is available to babies and young people on the NHS, deaf children are not reaching their full potential, and we are not maximising the investment being made in screening and technology.

At present, more than 92% of deaf children under the age of five in the UK are unable to access an auditory verbal programme, because there is little to no provision through publicly funded services and there are only 30 auditory verbal therapists in the UK. There are just over 460 deaf children living in East Sussex. There are no auditory verbal therapists in Hastings and Rye or in East Sussex. Other developed countries, such as Australia, New Zealand and Denmark, already provide state funding for auditory verbal therapy, and the UK should strive to match that investment.

About 80% of children who attend an auditory verbal programme for at least two years achieve the same level of spoken language as their hearing peers, rising to 97% of children without additional needs. Most of these children attend mainstream schools and attain educational outcomes on a par with those of hearing children. Auditory verbal therapy is part of the Early Intervention Foundation guidebook.

To increase access to specialist support, we need to train more specialist practitioners in the auditory verbal approach. For an investment of just over £2 million a year over the next decade, we can transform the landscape of auditory verbal provision. Economic analysis has shown that training a small proportion of the current public sector workforce in order to embed 300 auditory verbal therapists across the UK can deliver £150 million of economic benefit, rising to £11.7 billion in the next 50 years, through improved quality of life, employment prospects, the lower cost of schooling, and avoided injuries. Furthermore, analysis from the charity Auditory Verbal UK, based on His Majesty’s Treasury models, shows that within 50 years the NHS would save £30.5 million through the avoidance of injury alone.

I have met amazing deaf children and young people who are brimming with confidence and self-esteem, and we have some sitting here with us today. Quite by chance, I have Noli here with me, who is doing a day’s work experience with me. I met her at the auditory verbal therapy event in Parliament. She is studying at Durham University and has huge confidence and self-esteem. Many young deaf people far exceed the expectations associated with their disability—although, to them, being deaf is not a disability, because of the early intervention they have received. Every deaf child deserves that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sally-Ann Hart]

I thank the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) for her contribution from the Scottish perspective. She highlighted a whole-child approach both inside and outside education. We need to get it right for all children to help them thrive. Given the right support and intervention, we can do so. I thank the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), for her positive comments on the need for early intervention for deaf children and their families and for a joined-up approach across Government. That is very helpful.

I thank the Minister for her understanding of the issue and of the need for early intervention. Will she meet with Auditory Verbal UK to help to support the organisation in ensuring that the right evidence is provided to the NHS, so that the NICE guidelines can reflect the need for early intervention at both national and ICB levels? Regarding auditory verbal therapists in the NHS for the long-term workforce plan, it is very clear that we have to think ahead. Getting things in place now is really important.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the provision of auditory verbal therapy.