Educational Audiology

Joy Rosenberg and Katy Mitchell | View as single page | Feedback/Impact

Quality Standards

In the United Kingdom, Quality Standards: Early years support for children with a hearing loss aged 0 to 5 (England, 2016) were developed by the National Deaf Children’s Society (NDCS) and a steering group.  The standards ‘set out how health, education and care providers should work together to support deaf children to achieve key outcomes by the time they start school’ (NDCS, 2016). 

The standards are grouped into four different domains, three of which are used by inspectors from the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted) and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to monitor the quality of support that children receive.

  • Domain A standards: The timely and effective identification of deafness and the child’s needs.
  • Domain B standards: Effectiveness in assessing and meeting needs of deaf children.
  • Domain C standards: The effectiveness of services in improving outcomes for deaf children 
  • Domain D standards: Leadership and management 

An Educational Audiologist has a vital role to play within service provision to help ensure that quality standards such as these are in place.

In the United States of America,  often the quality is managed at state level such as in this example.

However, in 2019 development and approval was completed for a national Scope of Practice.