A deaf schoolboy has written to Rishi Sunak calling for better NHS support for children like him.
Nine-year-old Orson Grimer has defied his disability to thrive at school after his parents saved up nearly £14,000 for a two-year Auditory Verbal therapy course.
It taught him to listen and speak like a child with full hearing.
But only 8% of the 7,200 deaf under-fives in the UK have access to Auditory Verbal. Orson said: “It isn’t fair all deaf children don’t get the opportunities I’ve had. Being deaf is part of who I am, it’s never stopped me from doing anything.”
Four UK babies a day are born deaf yet there is little NHS provision for Auditory Verbal. Most who benefit from it get bursaries from charity Auditory Verbal UK. Many countries, like Australia, provide public funding for it.
Orson and AVUK want the Government to invest £2million a year for a decade. Mum Avril, 45, from Aldbury, Herts, joined him at Downing Street ahead of Deaf Awareness Week, last week.
She called his therapy “life-changing”.
It teaches deaf kids to process sound from hearing technology, like cochlear implants. They then develop language and learn to talk. It has a 97% success rate.
AVUK chief Anita Grover said deaf children face lower job and life prospects, but insisted: “It doesn’t have to be this way.”
A government spokesman said commissioning of hearing services takes place at local level based on the community’s needs.
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