The changing context for education of the deaf in Australia: new imperatives for teacher education

Recent developments in fields such as newborn hearing screening and cochlear implantation have served to ensure that special educational programmes required to meet the needs of children who are deaf or hard of hearing are increasingly diverse and complex. Consequently, a broader range of professional knowledge and skills is required of these children's teachers than at any point in the history of this field. The present article reviews the current situation in education for children who are deaf, and argues that preparation of teachers so that they are able to work across the full range of potential professional roles is neither logical nor possible in this context. A model for initial and continuing teacher education based on a combination of core and specific elective studies is proposed as an alternative to attempting comprehensive education for teachers of children who are deaf or hard of hearing.