TACTILE COMMUNICATION AND CONGENITAL DEAFBLINDNESS

This booklet is part of series on deafblindness and various topics related to dual sensory loss. The series is aimed at professionals involved in working with individuals with deafblindness. Family members can also benefit from the series. The booklet focuses on relevant themes and skills that communication partners of individuals with congenital deafblindness must master and employ in the relationship, so they can do their utmost to make communication sensorially accessible for both parties.

It is about ensuring that the person with deafblindness has an experience of both meeting someone and being met, feeling seen and heard, and feeling that their voice holds weight and value for the conversation partner. Tactile communication rarely stands alone – most often, it is used as support for either visual or auditory communication. The majority of people with deafblindness have some residual hearing or vision, which is used as the primary channel of communication. However, often the impaired senses are not sufficient to communicate through them alone, and this is where tactile communication can be invaluable as support.

The English version is kindly funded by the EU’s ERASMUS+ programme. The first printing of the publications is thus free, but you will need to pay for shipping. Our order form is in Danish. We only use basic terms that should be easy to translate using Google Translate or similar. In case you need assistance, please write matcen@rn.dk First, select “Læg i kurv” to put the booklet in the shopping basket (kurv). Then “Gå til betaling” for checkout. Now please fill in the required parts of the form (marked with *). Fornavn is your given name, efternavn is your family name.