British Sign Language and Linguistic Access Working Group ...

■■■1 accreditation as a BSL assessor and a certificate in counselling;1 Edexcel qualification in Communication Support Work;2 PDA qualifications for classroom assistants.It is likely that the impact of recent injection of funding into tutor training will be noticeableamong this group.Other qualifications: Specialist Nursery NursesIn addition to BSL qualifications, the following qualifications were reported among the20 staff:■■■■■3 PDA qualifications for classroom assistants;2 Higher English;3 HNC in Childcare and Education;1 HNC Supporting Special Learning Needs;1 SNEB Certificate in ChildcareThere were no details of training for Educational Audiologists or Speech and LanguageTherapists, other than the specific professional training and BSL qualifications alreadymentioned.7.2.2. MOST RECENT ADPS DATA (2004/2005)As explained above, the ADPS data on support provided to individual pupils does notyet allow for a headcount of staff. However, it is still possible to get a picture of therange of qualifications among staff who provided linguistic access/support during thefive years of the project.ADPS Teacher Survey data has already been explored, above, in relation to ToDqualifications. ADPS data on Speech and Language Therapists (SALTs) qualifications,shows that, as with the 2007 data, they are usually employed by the health service;therefore the detail of their qualifications was not necessarily available to ToDrespondents in the ADPS pupil survey. Often the phrase ‘appropriate qualification’would be entered. However, some references were made to SALT graduate andpostgraduate qualifications. In addition, one SaLT was reported as having a ‘Certificatein BSL/English Interpreting Studies’ and there were two incidences of BSL Level 2 andone of BSL Level 1.Table 8 show ADPS information on qualifications of a selection of other staff who providedsignificant levels of support/access to severely deaf/profoundly deaf/cochlear implantedpupils in 2004/2005. These data do not include staff who work in schools for deafchildren. Again the totals do not necessarily represent total number of staff, as thesame member of staff may appear twice (as having provided a service to more than onepupil).As with the 2007 information, this data shows little evidence of qualification relatingspecifically to linguistic access for deaf pupils, among Learning Support Teachers andAssistants, apart from a small number of BSL qualifications at basic and intermediatelevels of language fluency.34