Understanding Deafblindness: The Foundation for Successful Communication Intervention

This tutorial provides speech-language pathologists (SLPs) with foundational knowledge to support their communication interventions with children and youth who are deafblind. This is a small disability group of great heterogeneity, with most having some functional vision and/or hearing and additional disabilities. The impact of deafblindness cannot be understood by adding the impacts of the child's hearing loss and visual impairment, as these senses frequently interact as the two distance senses for learning. Deafblindness greatly reduces both observational and incidental learning, necessitating the crafting of experiences and direct teaching of concepts. Children who are deafblind learn through the parts-to-whole approach, experiencing part of a context or experience and then needing the support of a trusted other to guide meaning-making. Receptive and expressive communication is often multimodal.

This tutorial provides a foundation on deafblindness, including a focus on learning and cognitive development, communication development, communication assessment, literacy development, and evidence-based practices and professional competencies. Additionally, the interprofessional collaborative practice (IPCP) framework is provided to support collaboration among SLPs and other professionals.

Communication interventions for individuals who are deafblind should be carefully designed to include the four key aspects of communication: form, function, content, and context. These aspects should be tailored to the individual's communication development level and their understanding of symbols. IPCP is important for sharing knowledge of the child and professional expertise.