As someone who has worked with deaf and hard of hearing children for a few years in north america, I would strongly suggest you research the impact of early language deprivation on cognitive and social development and how this would impact late language acquisition.

Has the child had no exposure to language at all or has he learned sign language? For how long? Internationally adopted older deaf children I have met, even if their hearing is good enough to hear with hearing aids, often are not able to adapt to depending on spoken language as a primary communication mode even though they probably would if they grew up in north america with early intervention. If children have had no exposure to any (spoken or signed) language for many years they will be extremely delayed in their cognitive and social functioning.

For hard of hearing children, not being able to hear for so long affects brain development so they are often unable to adapt to communicating only orally even with hearing aids/CI etc. The brain has not been received signals for so long that it looses the ability to make meaning from auditory input.
If their vision is unimpaired, they usually depend on ASL (american sign language) at school and at home – however their signed language use can also be impaired due to the general cognitive delay.

If the child has been able to acquire signed language (not just basic gesturing) his brain will be in a much better position to benefit from hearing aids as he will have a linguistic framework, point of reference that will help him attach meaning to new auditory input.

I am an American teaching English in Thai Nguyen at the American Academy of English. The school is having a slow summer, and I am eager to work elsewhere on my days off. However, I’m having trouble finding contact information for the Disadvantaged Students Center. Could you help me contact that agency?

Thank you!
-Jacquie

I too am an Australian living in Hanoi. I am in the process of working alongside a charity ‘children’s hope in action’ to enable a 7 year old boy to gain his hearing for the first time, through the use of hearing aids. He has not been going to school on account of not being able to hear, and he can not speak. He lives in Hoi An. I would be eternally grateful for any advice on the best way forward in terms of assisting the family to help their son speak, listen, and manage his hearing aid. I think it would also be useful to access some sort of information pack – a sort of do it yourself guide to speech therapy for families so that they can help their children. Does anyone know if this exists? Would love to discuss further.

Recently at the school the 80 deaf students all got hearing aids but still some can not hear. The school has very limited equipment for testing hearing and I suspect the equipment has not been calibrated.

I am not sure the school nurse knows how to use this equipment to it full benefit. Plus they do not have the capacity to do a full hearing assessment (this can be done at Hanoi ENT hospital but the cost although low is still too expensive for these children of poor families). They are also unable to do proper mouldings and I suspect resources for teaching deaf children is also limited.

I am also speaking with a Dr Duong at the ENT hospital at Hanoi and with a number of audiologist and speech therapists in Australia that are keen to help.

I would love to hear from you about what you are doing in south vietnam and maybe you could give me some advice on how to go about helping these children, regards Priya