Relationship Between Developmental Stage of Congenitally Deaf-Blind Children and Instruction in Communication: Interviews With Teachers

Abstract

Children who are congenitally deaf-blind have difficulty in communication and need special guidance that is suitable for their developmental stage. However, in Japan, it has been difficult to share and pass on expertise in the education of deaf-blind children, and improving the level of expertise has also been an issue. Furthermore, few studies have been done on teachers involved in the education of deaf-blind children. In the present study, teachers who had had experience teaching deaf-blind children were interviewed in order to obtain information about how their teaching methods changed according to the children’s developmental stages. The results of the interviews revealed that the nature of communication with deafblind children begins with the formation of connections with others and gradually increases in generality. As the communicative needs of deaf-blind children gradually changed, the teachers changed their instructional methods so as to meet the children’s needs. On the other hand, what a deaf-blind child can understand and express depends on the type of behavior, the situation, and the context of the situation, suggesting that each deaf-blind child has multiple developmental stages, and that it is necessary to understand the development of deaf-blind children from multiple perspectives. In the future, specific case studies should be done in order to compensate for difficulties in generalizing the present research.