Transcript An Overview of Strategies to Improve Communication and

An Overview of Strategies to
Improve Communication and
Information Access for Individuals
Who Live With Combined Vision
Loss and Hearing Loss
Ed Gervasoni, Ed.S, COMS, CVRT
(520) 603-9016
[email protected]
Qualifications
• Over 25 years experience working and interacting across environments with
individuals who are considered deaf-blind.; experiences include
– One-on-one Community Support Service Provider (SSP)
– Sign Language Interpreting
– Specialized direct service provision in the areas of:
• Orientation & Mobility (COMS)
• Independent Living Skills (CVRT)
• Information & Communication Access (highly informed)
– Co-constructed advocacy work on city and state levels with the deafblind community members
– Trainer and coach of Support Service Personnel and Interveners
• Educational Specialist Degree (Ed.S.) independent living for the deaf-Blind
Presentation Goals
• Participants will be informed
about strategies for improving
communication and information
access for individuals who live
with combined vision and hearing
losses
Content Areas
• The strategies addressed will be
in the areas of:
– self-advocacy
– specialized service provision
– assistive technologies
What is Deaf-Blindness
• The disability of access to:
– Visual and Auditory Information
– Communication
– Static & Dynamic Environments
Helen Keller on Communication
• the problems of hearing loss
are deeper and more
complex, if not more
important, than those of
blindness. Blindness
prevents one from seeing
the world, but hearing loss
prevents one from easily
communicating with those
in it. By far, communication
access is the greatest of all
barriers!
COMMUNICATION ACCESS
Face-to-face
Tele-communications
Deaf-Blind people with
each other and as a group
Communication with
automated technologies
Information Access Barriers for the Deaf-Blind:
•
In the home or within indoor controlled
environments much can be done for the person
who has a high degree of literacy skills & good
adaptive independent living skills
• Outside of the home (information access is
much less controllable)
Community Access
• Knowing where and what
is going on in a particular
space
Gaining access to it
Transportation
Critical Considerations
• Environmental Complexity
• Situational Predictability
• Static Verses Dynamic Environments
• Level of Assertiveness
Situational and Environmental
Complexity
• Recognizing that situations can range from
Simple ________to ________ Complex
o Simple = only one thing to deal with; no visual or
auditory clutter in the background or surrounding
areas; visual & auditory contingencies are ideal.
o Complex = many things to deal with, visual and
auditory clutter exists in the background and
surrounding areas, contingencies are less than
ideal
Self-Education Combined with
Environmental Control
• One must understand and be able to
– Articulate the functional aspects of one’s unique
combined hearing and vision loss
– Assess the situation they are confronted with
– Provide direction on how accommodations should
be made
– Insist that established protocols are used and
followed
Self-Education and Control
• Knowing what one needs and wants (by
priority) from given situations
• Is willing to implement strategies for
control, management and success.
Audotory Complexities
Simple Environment
Auditory Complexities
Complexities of the Environment
• Auditory
–Background noises, number of
conversation partners involved,
information hearing needs to be
attended to, other interfering factors,
available AT
• Of all people who are visually
impaired, 80 percent have some
usable vision,” explains Darick
Wright, Perkin’s Low-Vision
Clinic’s coordinator. “It’s very
important to understand what
that level of vision is and how an
individual uses it….”
Complexities of the Environment
Visual
Lighting,
AT available
Glare factors with lighting and AT
How much visual information needs to
be attended to
Static verses dynamic activities
Visual Complexity
Visual Complexity
Understanding the functional barriers
that one’s combined vision and hearing
loss create for one in given situations
• How and when is communication affected?
• How do the barriers affect one’s ability to gain
access to various forms of:
– Visual information
– Auditory information
– Various combinations of both
Assistive Technology
• Definition: A tool that enables access to
information that is otherwise unobtainable.
• Specifically technologies that address:
– enhancing auditory access
– enhancing visual access
Auditory Enhancement Technologies
• Hearing Aids - newer hearing aids incorporate
two features that result in better processing
for speech
1. Frequency transposition – allows the hearing aids to take
sounds too faint for hearing impaired person to hear and
transposes them to frequency levels that are audible
(east).
2. Separating speech from noise – compresses noise and
makes speech linear thus enabling better clarity
Brady, G.Y., October 2010; Monthly Communicator, New Jersey
• Speech + Text – available options
Hearing Aid Technologies
Programmable
Covers all frequencies
32 channels & 4
programs:
Omni and dynamic
directional microhone,
FM system, direct
connection to telephone
and computer
Face-to-Face Communication
UbiDuo Communication Device
up to 24 point front – reverse video users
UUUb
Video Phone Technologies
Visual Enhancement Technologies
• Commercial off the shelf equipment
• Specialized equipment with ideal features
– Ability to zoom from near to far and everything in
between
– Ability to control for resolution & clarity across
given environments
– Ability to have simultaneous viewing capacities
– The need for portability and ease of use
Using AT for communication
Video Magnification Technology
Twenty-First Century Communications
and Video Accessibility Act of 2010
• On Friday, October 8, President Barack Obama
signed the Twenty-First Century
Communications and Video Accessibility Act
of 2010 into law.
• To ensure that individuals with disabilities
have access to emerging Internet Protocolbased communication and video programming
technologies in the 21st century.
Human Accommodation Tool
• Specialized Service Provision (SSP): oneon-one support to help you manage:
– Communication
– Visual-auditory information access
– Travel within the community
Using The SSP
Using the SSP
Environmental Access
Accommodations
• Eliminate or change environmental
factors that are distracters
• Use accommodation tools when you
have them available such as AT and
SSP Services
Environmental Access
Accommodations
• Enlisting others to help control the
environment
• Creating one’s own environments and
establishing one’s own protocols within them
• Combining methods whenever it’s useful
Self-Advocacy
• Be willing to declare what ones access needs
are
• Educating others about the accommodation
strategies that work best for a particular
individual
• Urging others to continuously practice making
accommodations in order to help one
maintain inclusion
Self-Advocacy
• Learn and discover new ways of doing
things which encourages and promotes:
–
–
–
–
Efficiency
Fatigue reduction
Simplicity
Satisfaction
Specialized Service Provision
• An individual specifically trained to
help accommodate for access to:
–Communication
–Desired auditory and visual
information
–Travel within community environments
Specialized Service Provision
• May be volunteer, family member,
paid staff person, or friend
• Their primary role is to help one gain
as much access as possible in any
given situation
Case Studies & Discussion
Ed Gervasoni, Ed.S., COMS, CVRT
[email protected]
(520) 603-9016 text or voice