What is the Virginia Deafblind Project?
The Virginia Deafblind Project is a statewide grant designed to provide technical assistance, training, and information to enhance the lives of children in Virginia with combined vision and hearing loss. The project supports families, teachers, and service providers in their endeavors to improve outcomes for children and youth who experience both vision and hearing loss with a goal of improving the quality of life for people with deafblindness as they live in their homes, learn in their schools, socialize in their communities and access the services they choose.
What is Deafblindness?
Deafblindness is a complex term. It is often mistakenly thought to apply only to those who do not see or hear anything. In fact, of those on the Deaf-Blind Child Count, ~ 80% have some vision and ~ 80% have some hearing (National Center on Deaf-Blindnes).
Deafblindness involves a combination of hearing and vision loss where those senses are reduced, distorted, or missing entirely. Because the impact on learning is exponentially greater for combined vision and hearing loss than for vision or hearing loss alone, understanding the unique impact of deafblindness is essential.
The combined effect of hearing and vision loss can dramatically impact how someone accesses information and communication. It is critically important to ensure that children and young adults with Deaf-Blindness have access to their home, school, and community environments to give them the opportunity to learn and communicate.
The contents of this website were developed under a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, #H326T180045. However, those contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the U.S. Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government. Project Officer, Louise Tripoli.