Introduction
Deaf blindness is a rare disability among children. However, the various conditions that cause multi-sensory impairments are vast. Deaf blindness has an impact on development which is a combination of visual and hearing impairment (Murdoch, 2004). This disability is unique and causes severe disadvantage in development especially due to the information access from the social, emotional, and communication development. Additionally, deafblind children have further problems for instance physical disabilities. Most of the deafblind children have severe neurological damage and are also physically disabled. As much as these children are required to live comfortable lives like all others, the perceptions in terms of multi-sensory impairments continue to change among teachers and professionals. This paper will examine the impacts of deaf blindness on early development, relevance of early intervention, and review of published studies regarding intervention programmes for deaf blind children. The focus will also engage the method that forms the basis of evidence in ensuring optimal early development among deaf blind children. The paper will also suggest recommendations that ensure the intervention strategies are applied to facilitate the development of deaf blind children.
Deafblindness impacts on early development
Vision and hearing can be rendered distant senses in the human body while taste, balance and touch are close. However, the impairment of one distant sense results in the other sense compensating it. The mother-child interaction is disrupted due to the inability to see or hear because since birth, the mother’s response and child’s signal have visual and auditory aspects. It is necessary to emphasize the relevance of vision in development relationships among deaf blind children. Deaf blind children have low response rate, provide few or less signs of reading and fail to enjoy interactions. However, the case is different for those born deaf blind because they are not aware of the environment around them. Mothers with deaf blind children acknowledge few communication habits and messages compared to those with nondisabled infants (Janssen, Riksen-Walraven & Van Dijk, 2003). Despite the communication challenges, deaf and blind children have interaction patters with parents though the development is slow.
Deafblind children find difficulty using observations to learn due to their inability to hear or see the results emanating from their actions. They lack incidental learning because hearing and seeing guarantee anticipation support thus control (Murdoch, 2004). Multi-sensory impaired children undergo isolation even as others interact because they cannot access distant information. The persistence of failing to control will cause passivity and helplessness. Deaf blind children find difficulty understanding the world around them thus the conceptual development and experience base among them differs from the nondisabled children. As a result, deafblind children have developmental issues in terms of communication, self-awareness, cognition, and emotional security, and independence, perceptual and motor development.
Early intervention implications
There is the need for early intervention among multi-sensory impaired children for purposes of facilitating development. Intervention programmes should incorporate specialists, families and coordinated services. Parents play the major role in early development of a child. It is necessary for professionals to partner with parents so that the understanding is shared in terms of the needs and their satisfaction. As a result, professionals should understand the child’s disability and the family structure, expectations and priorities. Parent and child bonding require an early intervention so that parents develop a sense of efficacy in child caring. Parents according to Janssen et al (2003) require support as well to cope with the helplessness of their child. It is easy to wrongly assess deaf and blind children thus the need to focus beyond the obvious behavior and consider development incongruities.
The comprehension of the developmental implications of multi-sensory impaired children including heir manifestation in behavior facilitates the intervention process. There are aspects of fragility among deafblind children as they learn thus unskilled teaching can easily harm the intervention process. The intervention involves educational strategies that require language and motion development. Multi-sensory impaired children require intervention strategies that emphasize language development, most specifically speech development. The deaf blind children can also move easily despite the hearing disability when early intervention strategies involving orientation are incorporated (Murdoch, 2004). Intervention programmes for severely disabled children have shown positive outcomes in child development. However, the gains in development are slow than those with moderate disabilities.
Method
Project PLAI was used in the evaluation of early intervention among deafblind children. PLAI is an acronym for Promoting Learning through Active Interaction and is designed to facilitate enjoyable interactions between caregivers and deafblind infants so as to boost communication development. A communication curriculum sought to facilitate contingent responses of caregivers towards children behaviors, pinpoint interactive strategies for specific child’s disabilities, develop contingency games and motivate caregiver’s competence and satisfaction in child caring. The deafblind children participated in the curriculum and showed developmental delays, difficulty of movement and lack of independence. Project PLAI sought to ensure the utilization of cues by caregivers so that the children can learn activities. The caregivers were interviewed to determine the reception of the cues after the project. There was an increase in the use of varied cues including the activities the children engaged (Janssen et al., 2003). At the end of the project, the caregivers managed to learn more children emotions and needs and their behavior. The caregivers gained the feeling of effective communication with the deafblind children.
Videotapes were used to record caregiver and child interactions during play and bath. The tapes would help caregivers learn the cues that enable a child predict activities and the interactive behavior of the child. There were variations between the cues used during bath and play at the start and the end. There was also a difference in the degree of sensitivity and directiveness of the caregiver during bath time at the beginning of the project and the end (Murdoch, 2004). These variations during bath and play time suggest the emphasis of the project on daily routines and situations as playtime became more interactive to caregivers than bath time. The parents worked collaboratively with the interveners throughout the project so that they could learn the child’s behavioral development through tangible and communication methods (Janssen et al., 2003). The parents also acted in effects of the child’s eyes and offered sensor information with interpretations to enable the child learn varied techniques of interactions. The findings show that intervention among deafblind children becomes effective at an early stage. The interventions require intensive, individualized and specialist attention on the areas that the disability has affected. There is the need for further research regarding the application of Project PLAI as an intervention method of deafblind children.
Project PLAI according to Murdoch (2004) focuses on curriculum content such that it revolves around recent thinking and the development challenges of deafblindness. It is useful in the learning of infants and young children with an aim of improving the interaction between the care giver and the child. Project PLAI is successful in ensuring the evaluation of interventionist training in handling deafblind children. The caregivers learned the perceptions of children towards specific activities such as bath and play. As a result, they gain increased competence with objectives on areas of concern depending on the child needs. Project PLAI demonstrates learning in terms of intervention brought forth by child and caregiver interactions as they form the basis for intuition (Janssen et al., 2003). As a result, the study promoted learning among caregivers and other interventionists so that the deafblind children get the help they want depending on varied needs.
Conclusion and Synthesis
The intervention of deafblind children should be undertaken at early months of life by experienced specialists. The abilities and needs of the children require frequent assessment by qualified and experienced professionals. The early interventionists should be trained both at work and alongside families with diverse culture and social constructs so that the ease of meeting children needs is evident. The professionals who deal with the deaf and blind children should embrace teamwork and coordination of input and expertise. Care should be taken to prevent conflicting advice specifically due to the varying children needs seeking different interventions.
The intervention location should also meet the needs of the family so that parents can willingly contribute to the process. The understanding of issues such as cognition, self-awareness, motor and perceptual and independence among deafblind children is necessary among all professionals. Multi-sensory impairment training among social and health service professionals is necessary and requires more attention. It is important to encourage efforts of coordination among interveners such that a joint training is conducted to promote effectiveness in handling deafblind children.
It is worth realizing that improved knowledge in terms of early intervention of deafblind children is important. There is need for further research to explore the relevance of varied forms and attributes of deafblind children intervention in the context of family and situations. It is therefore evident that early intervention among deafblind children is beneficial and the needs are providing intervention measures that satisfy the needs of the family and deafblind child.
References
Janssen, M. J., Riksen-Walraven, J. M., & Van Dijk, J. P. (2003). Toward a diagnostic intervention model for fostering harmonious interactions between deaf-blind children and their educators. Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness, 97(4), 197-214.
Murdoch, H. (2004). Early intervention for children who are deafblind. Educational and child psychology, 21(2), 67.
