VIDBE-Q Volume 65 Issue 1
placements include residential schools, and hospital or home settings
(Nelson, Bruce, & Barnhill, in press). Because students who are deafblind
may be served in various settings that are situated in different service
delivery systems, both teachers of the deafblind and interveners also
provide services in these diverse contexts, including some home and
community-based environments, and are sometimes paid through different
systemic funding streams.
If students who are deafblind are to fully partake in their educational
programming, professionals from multiple disciplines should obtain
knowledge about deafblindness and its implications. They must also share
disciplinary knowledge across all collaborative team members. Such
disciplines include Orientation & Mobility Specialists, Physical Therapists,
Occupational Therapists, Speech and Language Pathologists (Therapists),
Augmentative and Alternative Communication specialists, Adaptive
Physical Education Specialists, Teachers of Students with Visual
Impairments, Teachers of Students who are Deaf/Hard of Hearing,
Audiologists, Interpreters, and Interveners (Nelson, Bruce & Barnhill, in
press).
Two distinct levels of teaching personnel have been identified as
particularly valuable to the education of children of who are deafblind. The