Deafblindness, also referred to as ‘dual sensory loss’, is a condition where a person has both hearing and vision loss.
Deafblindness affects people of all ages in different ways, and no two people who are deafblind are the same.
Many people will not be completely deaf and completely blind but will have some remaining use of one or both senses. Others may also have additional physical or learning disabilities (Sense, 2008).
Symptoms and characteristics
People with deafblindness can have varying degrees of combined hearing and vision impairment. For example, a person may be (Able Australia 2007):
- hard of hearing and partially sighted
- hard of hearing and completely blind
- completely deaf and partially sighted
- completely deaf and blind.
When someone is born with combined sight and hearing difficulties this is called congenital deafblindness. If a person develops hearing and vision loss later in life, this is called acquired deafblindness. This may be due to a accident, illness or as a result of aging.
In some cases, people may be born with a condition such as Usher syndrome, which may mean that they progressively lose their sight and hearing (Sense, 2008).
Workplace adjustments and solutions
There are solutions and adjustments for the following job requirements:
References
Able Australia 2007, Able Australia, Sydney, viewed 1 March 2007, <http://www.ableaustralia.org.au/>.
Australian DeafBlind Council 2003, Australian DeafBlind Council, viewed 1 March 2007, <http://home.internex.net.au/~dba/>.
Sense 2008, What is Deafblindness?, Sense, London, viewed 10 October 2008, <http://www.sense.org.uk/what_is_deafblindness/>.