Deaf school children have access to better services after a restructure of the way they are educated, according to Minister of Education Terry Lister.

Parents of hearing-impaired students who met with the Minister in January had raised concerns about the educational services that they were receiving.

But addressing the parents again recently, during a speech at Dellwood Middle School, Mr. Lister outlined a number of steps that have been taken to improve the situation.

As of the start of this school year, he said, the ten students on the Island who are classified as having profound to severe hearing loss have been transferred to either Gilbert Institute or Dellwood Middle School, with one student attending high school at CedarBridge Academy.

This is in contrast to the previous arrangements, when the youngsters were taught at schools across Bermuda and speech therapists and specialist teachers had to travel from place to place.

A new teacher of the hearing impaired has been employed, meaning that there are now three of these professionals working in collaboration with classroom teachers.

One works exclusively with the six deaf children aged under four years on the Island, one is assigned to Gilbert Institute, and the other to Dellwood and CedarBridge.

The three schools have also been assigned on-site speech and language pathologists in order to give each student up to 100 minutes of speech therapy per week.

The Minister spoke of a number of improvements made to the school buildings, with carpet laid in some classrooms at Gilbert Institute to dampen noise and air conditioners maintained to ensure a quieter sound.

At Dellwood Middle School, air conditioners have been installed so teachers can keep the windows shut and eliminate the noise from Angle Street, and 'hush puppies' have been put on chair legs to deaden noise.

Classroom teachers are being given continued training and a group of para-educators have been trained over the summer as transliterators, to provide a voice for deaf children who cannot speak or whose voices are hard for others to understand.

In addition, he said, three approved overseas schools for deaf children have now been identified, with places to be funded under a Government policy established last year.

"Restructuring the hearing service is a process. However, we are well on our way to ensuring that your children receive the best education possible," said Mr. Lister.