A child with deafblindness will experience the world differently from other children. But these children can learn to communicate, make friends and look after themselves. They’ll need some help from you and a team of health professionals and educators.
What is deafblindness?
Deafblindness means that your child has problems with both seeing and hearing. These problems might be there from when your child is born or you might notice them at some point during childhood. Deafblindness is a lifelong condition.
Deafblind children usually have one of the following experiences:
- They have both hearing and vision loss from birth or early childhood.
- They are blind from birth or early childhood and lose hearing later on.
- They are deaf from birth or early childhood and lose sight later on.
A child doesn’t need to be completely deaf and/or blind to be considered deafblind. In fact, most children who are deafblind have a little bit of hearing or vision. They can use the sight or hearing they have, along with their other senses, to learn how to communicate with others.
Children who are deafblind will need help to communicate and make friends with other people. Otherwise, there’s a risk they might grow up feeling isolated.
Causes of deafblindness
Some of the causes of deafblindness in children include:
- genetic conditions, such as Usher syndrome and CHARGE syndrome
- viral infection during pregnancy
- cerebral palsy
- fetal alcohol syndrome
- early premature birth
- illness, trauma and injuries.
Early signs and symptoms
Kids who are deafblind might have eyes and ears that look the same as everybody else’s. Often, it will be something about your child’s behaviour or the way he uses his eyes that makes you think there could be a problem with his hearing or vision.
Most babies start to focus on faces and things by 4-5 weeks of age. They turn their heads to hear where a sound is coming from by four months. But if your baby is deafblind, you might notice she doesn’t seem to be doing this.
Here are some other signs that your baby might be deafblind:
- He sleeps a lot, cries a little bit and doesn’t move his arms and legs much.
- He makes little eye contact with you or other people.
- He doesn’t make sounds, grasp objects, sit, pull himself up to standing and walk by the time you might expect.
- He doesn’t reach out and move towards things.
- He doesn’t react to loud noises, voices or sounds.
- He rocks backwards and forwards, bangs his head or pokes his eyes.
- He doesn’t like being touched by people or things.
If you’re worried about how your baby or child is behaving or developing, you can talk about this with your doctor. You can also talk about any of your concerns with your maternal child and family health nurse.
Diagnosis and early intervention services
The earlier deafblindness is diagnosed, the better.
All babies are offered hearing screening tests just after they’re born. These tests can pick up some hearing impairments.
If you’re worried about your child’s vision or hearing as she gets older, first see your GP. If it’s needed, your GP will send you to an audiologist and/or ophthalmologist. These specialists will look at your child’s ears and eyes, ask you questions about how your child acts, and do lots of tests. At the end of this, the specialists should be able to say exactly what the problem is.
Your audiologist and ophthalmologist will guide you toward early intervention services. These services connect you with health professionals and educators who can help you learn how to spend time with your child in ways that support his development. Children learn the most from the people who care for them and with whom
they spend most of their time, so everyday play and communication can
help your child a lot.
Early intervention can also help your child learn how to communicate, make
friends and be around other people, and feel confident to explore his
The team of professionals who might be involved in supporting you and your child includes:
It’s good for you and your child to get to know these professionals and work with them. This means the professionals will get a good sense of what your child needs to grow, learn and become more independent.
Children who have a confirmed diagnosis of deafblindness are eligible for up to $12 000 from the Australian Government’s Better Start for Children with Disability initiative
Better Start funds early intervention services, which can improve
outcomes for children with disabilities such as deafblindness.
Effects of deafblindness
A child with hearing and vision loss has difficulty or delays in understanding what is going on around her. This means that deafblindness can affect other areas of your child’s development:
- Communicating – for example, your child might not see or hear someone waving and smiling at her or be able to make eye contact.
- Talking – for example, your baby might not point to objects, so the people around her won’t name these objects.
- Telling the difference between day and night – this might make it hard for your child to settle into a regular sleeping routine.
- Sitting, crawling and walking – for example, your child might not want to move towards objects, because she can’t see or hear them.
- Learning to read and write – your child might be delayed in learning the motor and listening skills she needs for reading and writing.
- Playing – for example, your child might be afraid to touch certain textures or explore areas she can’t see.
- Responding quickly to situations – because your child might not be able to learn through seeing, she might not know how to respond to a situation or experience and will take her time in responding instead of reacting.
To get over these challenges, your child will need step-by-step guidance to connect and make sense of words, sounds, touch and actions. Positive interactions and experiences with families and health professionals will encourage him to have safe, independent and confident movement in his home, school and community.
You can get your child into exploring her environment using whatever sight and hearing she has – and all of her other senses. This will help spark her curiosity about the world around her.
Services and support
Many professionals and support services can help you and your family if your child has deafblindness.
Learning as much as possible from your specialists will help. Don’t be afraid to ask lots of questions.
If you need more information about deafblindness, good places to start are Able Australia, the Senses Foundation and the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children.
Looking after yourself
Although it’s easy to get caught up in looking after your child, it’s important to look after your own wellbeing too. If you’re physically and mentally well, you’ll be better able to care for your child.
The services system
Many services and supports can help your child achieve his potential. But finding your way through the disability services system can be tricky. Our Disability Services Pathfinder can help.