VIDBE-Q Volume 65 Issue 2
49
Bruce, 2013), this sample was highly heterogeneous with no association between
level of dual sensory loss or number of additional disabilities and students'
expressive communication levels.
Teacher Matching and the Tactile Threshold
Given the finding that students who had teachers who matched their
expected receptive forms had higher levels of expressive communication, teacher
matching is potentially a promising way to increase students' communication
growth. Teachers' communication either matched or did not match what a
student's expected receptive communication modality would be depending on their
rates of using tactile, verbal or visual forms in their classrooms and the student's
level of dual sensory loss. Currently, there is no universally accepted way of
scaling combined vision and hearing loss for research purposes or guiding
provision of services. In this study, we scaled both severity of hearing and vision
loss on a 1-5 scale and added these numbers to get a dual sensory loss scale of 2-
10, with 10 representing total blindness and a profound hearing loss.
In order to make comparisons, a judgment call was made in our research that
at a certain level of combined hearing and vision loss that a student's primary
receptive mode of communication would be in a tactile form, referred to as a,
"tactile threshold." The tactile threshold was set at a level 5 and above of dual
sensory loss. Given that both his or her hearing and vision would both be
