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October 2025 - Health

Deaf children advise researchers by sharing their insights on essential areas for future study: Deaf children and people with experience of childhood deafness from across the UK have shared valuable insights into areas of research that they believe require further investigation; and researchers hope that their input will lead to further studies on childhood deafness.

From 2023 to 2025, a team of researchers from Lancaster, Aston, and Manchester Universities, using the James Lind Alliance (JLA) Priority Setting Partnership framework – designed to help patients, carers and clinicians agree on Top 10 research priorities – collaborated with several hundred deaf children, parents, young people, and professionals. Their goal was to pinpoint key questions that researchers should focus on regarding childhood deafness and hearing loss.

Through online surveys, focus groups, and workshops, deaf children and adults developed a top ten list of the most pressing questions that matter to them. The top three research priorities identified by deaf children were strikingly similar to those highlighted by adults. These priorities included the effects of missing out on things going on around them, strategies for families to communicate effectively and maintain strong relationships with their deaf children, and the types of support needed in school, particularly for those with additional learning needs. For adults, the primary focus was on addressing special educational needs, followed closely by empowering deaf children to advocate for themselves and finding ways to enhance family relationships.

Additional priority questions for both deaf children and adults included how language deprivation can be identified early and whether it’s harder for deaf children if they don’t learn to communicate early in their lives, whether children with mild or unilateral deafness require additional interventions and support, and how deaf children can develop a positive sense of self and feel accepted in both the Deaf and hearing communities.

Dr Anisa Visram, from The University of Manchester and co-lead on the project, said: “We have formed important collaborations with deaf young people, parents of deaf children, and a whole range of professionals working with deaf children. The group plan to keep working together to promote the Top 10 lists and help develop research projects to start to answer these important questions.”

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