The Hearing Impairment Service is a peripatetic outreach service provided through a j . oint agreement between East Lothian and Midlothian Council and aims to provide support for all deaf or hearing impaired children and their families by working in collaboration with other professionals to enhance the quality of the pupil's educational and social experience thus enabling them to achieve their full potential.

In carrying out this aim, the staff undertake to:

• provide on-going assessment of children with a hearing impairment
• provide quality educational planning to enable each child to access to the full curriculum
• address children's linguistic and communicative needs in order to develop confidence and independence
• facilitate the provision of hearing aids, monitoring and technical support to enable each child to function effectively
• provide access to role models to enable families to develop deaf awareness and access to sign language tuition
• offer advice and support to class/subject teachers on alternative teaching strategies and management or adaptation of the classroom environment
• offer advice at crucial stages of secondary education regarding subject choices for future educational and vocational goals, in collaboration with guidance staff and careers advisers
• liaise/advise on special examination arrangements, as appropriate
• liaise with other professionals and agencies, health, psychologists, social work and contribute to relevant discussions or meetings
• provide deaf awareness training and sign language to other front-line council employees

An Educational Audiologist works across all Lothian education authorities and provides early identification and assessment. Children are normally referred to the Hearing Impairment Service by Audiological Services.

However, if schools have concerns about an individual child's hearing, the matter can also be raised with the parent/carer and the child referred to the Audiology Clinic by her/his own GP or the Community Child Health Service