The Best of Both Worlds: A Co-Enrollment Program for DHH Children in the Netherlands
In 2013, a co-enrollment program was initiated through a collaboration between Kentalis Talent, a special school for deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children, and OBS de Bolster, a mainstream school. This co-enrollment program is based on the experiences and research results of the former Twinschool program, a co-enrollment program that existed from 2003 to 2013 and was initiated by Kentalis Talent. Currently, 27 DHH children are enrolled in seven different classes. This chapter will focus on (1) the history and organization of the co-enrollment program in terms of the different professionals who are structurally involved; (2) DHH children’s school achievements, speech and language development, well-being, and social development; (3) the variety of didactic approaches (e.g., preteaching, co-teaching, interpreting) that are used in the co-enrollment program to try to ensure that DHH children have optimal access to the teachers’ instruction and, more broadly, to classroom communication; and (4) teachers’ experiences with these collaborative didactic approaches, focusing on the implications of the co-enrollment program on their daily practices.