School aged children

As children move into school, direct rehabilitation input becomes less frequent. We assess every child’s functional listening skills as they enter both primary and secondary school to ensure their cochlear implant technology continues to meet their educational and communication needs. Your rehab advisor meets with local professionals—such as Teachers of the Deaf and Speech and Language Therapists once per term to share updates and ensure consistent strategies across settings. We also provide specialist training every two years in all local areas to help local teams stay confident and skilled with cochlear implant equipment.

Functional Listening Assessments

To understand how well a child is hearing and understanding with their cochlear implant in real‑life situations, we carry out functional listening assessments using a range of tools. These assessments help us identify how a child listens in both quiet and noisy environments—similar to everyday classroom and home settings.

We mostly use the Crescent of Sound system to present sounds from different directions allowing us to assess how the child responds to speech and sound from the front and side.

During the assessment, we use:

Toy McCormick Test (in quiet and noise):
A child‑friendly test using ten familiar toy objects to check how well a child can identify spoken words. This is especially helpful for younger children or children who benefit from visual, play‑based tasks.

BKB Sentences (in quiet and noise):
Simple spoken sentences that help measure how well a child understands everyday speech. This gives valuable information about how they may cope in a busy classroom or playground.

Together, these assessments provide a clear picture of a child’s functional listening skills and support decisions about technology settings and classroom strategies.

Click here for a social story to help prepare your child for this assessment.

MASP Meetings

Every school‑aged child is offered a Multi‑Agency Support Plan (MASP) meeting. The purpose of this meeting is to bring together family, school staff and professionals to review progress, agree goals and set clear plans for the year ahead.

Click here for a more detailed leaflet explaining the MASP process.

Talking Mats

At key transition stages—such as moving into primary, secondary, or preparing for adulthood—we use Talking Mats with young people to gather their views about their cochlear implant equipment, listening, and everyday communication. Talking Mats is a visual, child‑friendly tool that helps young people express what is working well, what they find challenging, and what support they feel they need.

This approach ensures that the child’s voice is heard and valued. The information gathered is used to inform their Multi‑Agency Support Plan (MASP), helping everyone involved understand the young person’s perspective and work together to support their progress and wellbeing.