Deaf children with additional needs are having their futures blighted by bad, unprofessional and often non-existent support and medical care.
Some medical staff are "overwhelmed by these children's complexity of needs" while others treat deafness as a minor condition that can be addressed later in the child's life, according to the largest study into the experiences of deaf children with complex disabilities, published on Wednesday.
In one case, doctors failed to diagnose a deaf child as also being profoundly blind until she was 18 months old, despite the mother repeatedly reporting her daughter's inability to see.
In another case, the behaviour of a blind toddler who repeatedly hit his head against hard surfaces was dismissed as normal for a child with learning disabilities. It was not until the father persuaded the doctor to watch a film he had made on his laptop, that the child was diagnosed with a brain tumour.
Susan Daniels, chief executive of the National Deaf Children's Society (NDCS) at the University of Manchester, which funded the Complex Needs, Complex Challenges report, said: "We are alarmed by the findings of this research, which shows services are not geared up to support or care for children who are deaf and have other disabilities."
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