What is Multi Sensory Impairment? "Persons are regarded as deafblind if they have a severe degree of combined visual and auditory impairment resulting in problems of communication, information and mobility". One severe impairment e.g. severe hearing loss, accompanied by partial sight or moderate sight loss still constitutes deafblindness. The reason the later or secondary loss only requires to be moderate before compounding effects are felt, is that the second sense has been relied on to compensate for the first loss. Normally a profoundly deaf sign language user who becomes partially sighted will have inherent problems with communication, access to information…

Born profoundly deaf. 78 db and 83 db.  . ( 1948) Speech therapy started 1951. Had to be mainstreamed in kindergarten cause I was imitating the kids in a local deaf school. Absolutely no ASL anywhere.  Hearing aid ( body aid)  in 1st grade. Two BTE in 3rd grade.  Short story on my schooling.  We just did not talk about handicaps. My 3rd  grade teacher remembered my hearing loss. ( an OLD  friend of Mom's) . It took me years and years AND YEARS AND YEARS   to realize that people forgot my hearing loss.  ( that was a compliment…

Down the loo or in the nettles at the end of the garden: from the age of 3 my top two destinations to hurlmy detested hearing aids.  Painfully shy, diagnosed profoundly deaf and devoid of much speech, I took every opportunity in venting my fury at having to wear such instruments. I mean, have you SEEN those things we had to wear back in the 70s? Worn on a harness with huge wires travelling from chest to ears that shouted ‘Look at me, look at me!’.  Not to mention the shocking level and quality of noise that was funneled into…

Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP) has always been something that I've denied but this year as I turned 39 it became clear I couldn't deny it anymore. I was 7 years old when the news came that there was RP in my family.  My sister was the first of us to be officially diagnosed it was the early 1980's and there was very little information around then she recently told me that back then she was informed by the specialist at Moorfields that there was no cure or treatment, she would most likely go blind and not to have any children!  However,…