Handwords was founded in July 1999 with the objective of facilitating the development of expressive and receptive language skills for young deaf children in their home and in their natural environment. Handwords facilitator works with these children and their families to develop these skills either at home or montessori/pre-school and as arranged.

 

90-95% of deaf children are born to hearing parents. There are many deaf children under the age of 5 in Ireland.
The Deaf child, like their hearing counterpart, is born with an innate ability to acquire language as part of their development. Both deaf and hearing children have similiar capacity for language and with access to the appropriate models they go through the same stages in the acquisition of language. Unfortunately deaf children do not always have access to the necessary models.

When deafness is diagnosed (usually when the child is 9 months old), a visiting teacher goes to the child's home to help the child learn to speak. In many cases the deaf child struggles with speech and in turn struggles to communicate with their family. Handwords aids this communication and awareness for the families and Deaf children are to be given access to the necessary models they need for language acquisition.. The Department of Education and Science funds it.

Handwords also provides Irish Sign Language (ISL) teaching in schools and colleges, one to one or small groups. Students learning ISL or training to be ISL interpreters can avail of the services.

For information on the Proprietor, click here