JVIB Abstract

If you are a JVIB subscriber, please log in below. If you are an AER member, JVIB is part of your membership benefit: please follow this link to AER's website to access JVIB.

Not yet a subscriber? Here are some options:
Subscribe for $45.
Purchase this individual article for $7.95.

Prefer not to subscribe?
Go here to read FREE JVIB content or go here to see what JVIB has to offer.

Videophone Technology and Students with Deaf-Blindness: A Method for Increasing Access and Communication

Abstract: Structured abstract: Introduction: Seeing the Possibilities with Videophone Technology began as research project funded by the National Center for Technology Innovation. The project implemented a face-to-face social networking program for students with deaf-blindness to investigate the potential for increasing access and communication using videophone technology. Methods: Ten students with deaf-blindness aged 16 to 20 in four southeastern states were recruited through the network of Deaf-Blind Project offices throughout the United States. Criteria for selection to participate in the study were that the participants needed to have enough functional visual acuity to access a 22-inch videophone monitor and use manual sign language as a mode of communication. After a videophone was installed in each participant's home and school, data were collected over six months, using three primary methods of collection. The data were analyzed through a qualitative design method. Results: The primary outcomes were increased accessibility for interpersonal communication among the students with deaf-blindness, seen notably in subscales of the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI) and through the development of themes involving the cultivation and maintenance of friendships with peers through interaction using videophone technology. Discussion: With the role of interactive technologies in our ever-increasing digital landscapes, timing is ripe for research that aids the advancement of accessibility to information and social interaction, particularly among populations that have historically been marginalized in traditional educational systems. Implications for practitioners: Dissemination of the results of the project through the National Consortium on Deaf-Blindness and the American Association of the Deaf-Blind will encourage practitioners in the field to replicate the project's activities with videophone technology to benefit youths who are deaf-blind.

There are 2 comments on this article.

• 
  1. Comment posted by RebeccaBurr on 10/17/2012 10:44:37 AM
  
  I loved reading about "the existence of joy" that you mentioned in your article, and found the results of the videophone project very interesting and, frankly, exciting. I am amazed to think that technology can afford teens with deafblindness the chance to be teens--to sit in their rooms and laugh and talk on the phone--not to mention communicate with businesses and conduct other everyday activities. Can you think of a similar way to bring communication into the lives of young adults with deaf-blindness who cannot see well enough to communicate using sign language on a videophone?
  
• 
  2. Comment posted by RebeccaBurr on 10/17/2012 11:28:31 AM
  
  Posted on behalf of Dr. Emerson: The most profound comments regarding the videophone activity among our youth participants came from families who shared the 'joy' they felt in observing their children having the opportunity to be, as you say, 'teenagers'.
  
  In response to your question regarding other means by which individuals who may not have adequate vision for videophone communication, technological innovations are surely on the horizon. Technology already gives us text to speech and some researchers are at work to bring this technology to manual communication. I envision the possibility of signed communication being translated into auditory and/or tactile (braille) forms to provide equal access to communication opportunities some day in the future!