Hearing aid youngsters listen to building site!

3:44am Tuesday 13th May 2008

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Deaf children used their hearing aids to their greatest potential to take part in a listening walk during Deaf Awareness Week.

The children, who all attend The Elizabeth Foundation in Bradford were sponsored by family and friends to take part in the walk at home and around the school during the awareness week which ran from May 5-11.

The youngsters listened out for as many different sounds as they could and recorded it on their clipboard and tape recorder.

A highlight of the walk was a visit to the building site of the Listening for Life Centre which will be the base of Bradford Royal Infirmary's Yorkshire Cochlear Implant Service and is right next door to The Elizabeth Foundation in Smith Lane.

The children were delighted to dress up just like the builders in yellow jackets and hard hats to visit the site and listen to the diggers and trucks.

Margaret Southern, a senior teacher for the deaf at The Elizabeth Foundation, said the fact the children were able to take part in a listening walk showed the exciting opportunities and potential deaf children have today through learning to listen.

"This highlights that these children are able to go on a listening walk which is amazing and shows there is so much more opportunities now for deaf children," she said.

All money raised by the children on the sponsored walk will go to towards creating Storyboxes - a box containing books, puppets and props which they can take home to share with their parents and carers and further develop their speech, language and listening skills.

The Telegraph & Argus Listening for Life Appeal is currently raising £1.5million to build and equip the Listening for Life Centre, which will be the country's first dedicated cochlear implant centre.

Some of the children who attend The Elizabeth Foundation, which works with hearing-impaired children from birth to five, have cochlear implants.

These children can expect to go on to have age-appropriate speech by the age of five and be able to attend mainstream schools.

e-mail: claire.lomax @telegraphandargus.co.uk