VIDBE-Q Volume 65 Issue 2
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Next, if a child was above a level 5 of dual sensory loss, but not primarily
receiving tactile communication, the teacher was considered not matching the
child's expected receptive modality. If the child was below a level 5 of dual
sensory loss, then the primary communication modality would default to whether
the hearing or vision loss was more significant. If the child had a more significant
hearing loss than vision loss, visual communication would be considered a match.
If the child had a more significant vision loss than a hearing loss, verbal
communication would be considered a match. If the child's dual sensory loss was
under a 4, but with equal levels of hearing and vision loss, either visual or verbal
communication would be considered a match. Two distinct groups were formed in
our sample, with 7 teachers who were considered matching and 8 teachers who
were not considered matching.
The ultimate goal is for the teacher's communication to match the learner
with DB's expected receptive modality, a modality he or she can fully access,
while also modeling a modality that could potentially be used expressively by the
student. A tactile threshold is a helpful way for teachers to think about how to
support a learner with dual sensory loss and whether this matching is occurring. If
adults in classrooms are not even modeling communication with the student's
strongest modality in mind, then the student does not even have a chance to get in
the communication game. Simply making teachers, paraprofessionals, and related
