Almost two-thirds of local authorities in England are failing deaf children and their families, research suggests.

A report, carried out by The University of Manchester on behalf of the National Deaf Children's Society, said deaf children were 3.4 times more likely to be abused and 40% had mental health problems.

The research found that only about a third of local authorities had specialist teams or arrangements with designated responsibility for deaf children and their families.

Where there were "children's disability teams", they were unlikely to have any specialist expertise in this area. "The lack of specialist knowledge and expertise was significant because it demonstrably hampered teams from being able appropriately to recognise the seriousness of a presenting problem when it concerned a deaf child," the report said.

Four authorities were found to have no designated services arrangements at all for deaf children and their families. And in 46% of the authorities assessed, there were no qualified social workers who worked with deaf children and their families either as part or whole of their job remit.

Full story on www.silent-sounds.co.uk

The University of Manchester research is published in Every Child Journal.