Early intervention for children who are deafblind

Abstract

Deafblindness (multi-sensory impairment) is a very rare disability causing extreme developmental disadvantage. All areas of development are affected from birth, jeopardising children’s personal development and their early family relationships. Professionals with expert knowledge of deafblindness are scarce because of its low incidence. Other complex, low-incidence disabilities share the problems of global developmental impact and limited community knowledge of conditions. Limited research has been undertaken regarding the benefits of early intervention for children with deafblindness. Effective early intervention is needed for this group, especially as the national introduction of newborn hearing screening will lower the average age of diagnosis. The complexity of the disability means that many professionals are usually involved in delivering intervention, necessitating effective multidisciplinary coordination. In this paper, the effects of deafblindness on development are summarised and the literature on early intervention for children with deafblindness is reviewed, together with an overview of findings from work with children with single sensory impairments and anecdotal evidence from programmes in other countries with well-developed services for children with deafblindness. The review indicates that the provision of early intervention for children with deafblindness should be specialist, coordinated and family-focused. The requirements for children with other complex low-incidence disabilities are likely to be similar.