Building Skills and Communication for Students who Are Deafblind

presented by Linda Mamer, B.C. Provincial Consultant for Students with Deafblindness

Reported by:      Natasha McDougald, Director, Society for the Advancement in the Education of the Hearing Impaired; April 24, 2006

On March 10, 2006, a workshop on ‘Building Skills and Communication for Students who Are Deafblind’ was presented by Dr. Linda Mamer, B.C. Provincial Consultant for Students with Deafblindness.  The workshop was sponsored by AVSI at the CNIB office in Calgary. Dr. Mamer, a professional with many years experience in Deafblindness, was ‘on tour’ in Alberta, speaking with parents, educators, assistants, intervenors and professionals about best practices and educational strategies around students with deafblindness. 

Dr. Mamer started her career in Brantford, Ontario at the W. Ross Macdonald School for the Blind.  She was proud to report, that since that time, Canada has become a leader in education and intervention with individuals who are Deafblind.  In fact, the concept of an intervenor was actually born here in Canada.  Since that time, Dr. Mamer has relocated to British Columbia, and has been working on developing and implementing Deafblind education within mainstream schools. 

Dr. Mamer introduced new terminology to the field of Deafblindness.  She discussed the ‘official’ definitions from the Canadian Deafblind and Rubella Association (CDBRA) of both Deafblindness and an intervenor.  Although these are complete explanations, she astutely characterized Deafblindness as an ‘information gathering disability’, which is easily understood by a layperson, and an intervenor as the ‘eyes and ears’ of an individual who is deafblind.  A key mantra of an intervenor should be ‘do with, not for’, in this way creating deafblind individuals who are capable, proactive and expressive communicators. 

She then discussed best practices in the field of Deafblindness including:

• The importance of establishing trust, and emotional bonding – very often the misplaced worry is that the deafblind person will become ‘dependent’ on the intervenor, where in fact, the individual is ‘dependent’ on the information given by the intervenor.  
• She also discussed how very important routines are to the deafblind person.  A key tenet was involving the learner in the whole process of any activity, and avoiding the ‘fairy godmother syndrome’, by which items seemed to magically appear to the individual.  This means not just giving the person a glass of milk, but instead educating them on the entire process that goes into getting, pouring and setting down the glass. 
• Dr. Mamer explained the importance of utilizing all of the senses, including incorporating aromatherapy, current technology in both hearing and visual aids, tactile and object clues. 
• As with any person, the deafblind student learns to do by doing – again, Dr. Mamer emphasized ‘Do with, NOT for!’  She underscored the success of hand-under-hand techniques vs. hand-over-hand techniques in creating proactive and independent expressive communicators. Other best practices included:
• making sure to generalize skills,
• giving appropriate and timely feedback,
• not setting time limitations for learning new concepts as that is impossible,
• the importance of organization and environmental management.
• Lastly, the key goal of independent expressive communication. 

New techniques and technology are revolutionalizing the field of deafblindness.  A revolution has occurred in intervention, with radically successful results in creating proactive active communicators.  The new strategy uses ‘hand under hand’ techniques; creating active learners and communicators.  Digital hearing aids, FM systems and cochlear implants are allowing increased access to auditory information.

A fascinating area of discussion was the success of both a Total Communication Approach and the incorporation of calendars in the individual’s daily life.  The key tenets of a successful communication system are:

              - A Way:  Forms of communication

              -A Reason:   Functions of communication

              -Something:  People, objects, actions, events and locations to communicate about

              -Somewhere:  Activities, routines and domains for communication to take place

              -Someone:  People to communicate with (family, service providers and peers)

The Total Communication Approach involves using all cues, and language options available.  It includes touch cues, environmental cues, gesture cues, object cues, picture cues, photo cues, sign language, cued speech, voice, print and Braille.   Dr. Mamer cautioned that this list is NOT created in order of increasing difficulty or desirability, instead, the more communication strategies an individual has – the better! 

Dr. Mamer’s positive attitude and determination was inspiring.  By turns, her stories about her students brought laughter, insights and tears.  She brought to mind the following quotation by Edward Everett Hale, “I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; I will not refuse to do something I can do. “

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