Deaf in Sweden

Sign language – from childhood

Deaf children have the right to a good preschool and school and to grow up in a signing environment, so the children have the opportunity to achieve a natural conceptual and linguistic development. Children develop their personality and their language through a continuous interplay with the environment.

Deaf preschool children

The need for a group with the same language, where you can develop playing and talking is of the utmost importance for the child´s whole development. You may encounter the opinion that one only signing person in a preschool can satisfy all the communicative needs of the deaf child. You may even be met with questions whether a child can develop on the same conditions as hearing children simply by having an interpreter at its side in the preschool. The answer is given – it can´t be done. Deaf preschool children need segregated signing preschools.

Also, the signing preschool for deaf children in hearing families may be the only available signing environment.

If you have been hindered by communicative difficulties during the important preschool and compulsory school years in the acquisition of knowledge, you have inhibitions later on in life. The foundations for a functioning communication and the acquisition of a language are laid already in the preschool.

The county council´s educational audiological care has the responsibility for the deaf preschool children and for the support the family might need.