Therapeutic approaches for deaf children at intervention centers in Chile’s metropolitan region: access to health and education

Aim: to characterize the health or education centers that work with deaf children from an early age. Methods: a survey of those in charge of centers for people with hearing loss (N=5), special schools for the deaf (N=3) and hospitals in which therapeutic intervention for people with hearing impairments (N=6) was carried out in Santiago, Chile in 2014. It consulted the characteristics of the people attended, the intervention method used at each center and information about the professionals making up each team of workers. In addition, information was compiled about whether the institution had inclusion programmes for normal or special education. Results: the majority of the institutions indicated that they had an oral focus or a variation on this. Only one used the bilingual intercultural model and another indicated that did not use oral models. The results varied concerning access to education and even to professionals, at centers of the same kind. Conclusion: the majority of the institutions indicated that they worked using the oral intervention methodology, providing fewer options for the early inclusion of bilingual intercultural education or other intervention methodologies.