Every parent who has to make choices for their child would like a cast-iron guarantee that their choice will be the right one. Unfortunately this is seldom possible and the choice of communication method for deaf children is no different.

Every child is unique. Every child's family is unique. Every child grows up with a mixture of good fortune and bad luck along the way. She takes against her Year 3 teacher; his best friend moves away just before SATs; her self-confidence blossoms when she finds a sport she's good at; he can suddenly make sense of arithmetic. Any of these and thousands of other circumstances will affect your child's development. Quite regardless of the fact that he or she is deaf.

So we don't offer any guarantees. All we can do is to show what has happened with other deaf children. There hasn't been very much research into how deaf children prosper at school and, especially, afterwards. But we can offer a few facts and figures and a few details of individual deaf young people and children. We are very grateful to them and their parents for allowing us to put this information on our site.