Communication Development of Children with Congenital Deafblindness

Abstract

This paper shows an introduction to the new concept of education for children with congenital deafblindness. The co-creating communication paradigm is based on the assumption that the communication development of congenital deafblind children is the same as that of persons who can see and hear, but under different circumstances: without seeing and hearing. This paradigm focuses four fundamental patterns of interaction. 1) Co-regulation of proximity and distance within co-created greeting –rituals 2) Co-regulation of explorative ventures and explorative sequences 3) Co-regulation of motion and emotion in co-created rituals of social interactive play 4) Co-creation of shared vocabularies and shared meaning in co-regulated communicative sequences. The episode related shared meaning was examined through video analysis in micro. A congenital deafblind child used the gesture as a part of a communicative interaction. It was important to think these interaction as a process of negotiation not as a teaching-learning process. Based on the examination above, the issues of transition to the cultural language and relevancy to sign language were considered.