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Understanding Children who are deafblind Through Child-Guided Strategies, International World Conference in Sao Paolo, Brazil
by Prof. Dr. Jan van Dijk and Prof. Dr. Catherine Nelson
The Editor of the Journal DBiReview requested the presenters of the pre-conference on assessment, Drs. Nelson en Van Dijk to write a short report of their experiences. This report will be published in the January 2012 issue of the Journal. We received permission to publish this report on our website.
Dr Nelson wrote:
Dr. Jan van Dijk of the Netherlands and Dr. Catherine Nelson of the University of Utah in the United States were pleased to have been given the opportunity to present two sessions on their Child-Guided assessment Method for children who are deafblind at the deafblind International World Conference in Sao Paolo, Brazil.
Within the presentations were descriptions of the methods utilized in the assessment as well as the framework used to determine child strengths, needs, and future directions for intervention. On each workshop day, Dr. van Dijk conducted a live demonstration of the assessment with a child and then the audience used the framework to formulate instructional goals for the children. Later in the conference, Dr. van Dijk assessed a third child to give participants another opportunity to gain knowledge about how to assess children who are deafblind using this unique approach.
As you can read in this section, I have visited Perkins School for the Blind in October 2010. Prior to a course and demonstration on my assessment techniques, I was interviewed for a webcast on this topic by a very professional team. I am happy to inform you that this webcast can be viewed on this site or on the Perkins site by following this link.
The resource manager of Perkins Dr. Mary Zatta forwarded the following message:
"I hope you are well. I wanted to share the feedback we have received regarding your webcast – we are thrilled with the comments! See below."
This is excellent! So well-organized and just the right amount of information for a webcast. The video clips were very helpful and well-edited. Thank you.
I strongly believe that the mirror neuron system helps us better understand a person with multiple sensory impairments, and propose that “the van Dijk approach” might be based on a system in our brain nobody even knew existed when I began my work.
If you are as excited as I am about this new research from the field of neurobiology, please join our Mirror Neurons Group. Let us see how, together, we can meaningfully incorporate these findings into our practice.
You need to be registered to have mirror neurons Group access.
I became interested in the role of mirror neurons about 10 years ago, soon after researchers at the University of Parma, Italy, published the results of their first data. The mirror neuron system (MNS) is a brain circuit that enables us to better understand and anticipate the actions of others. The circuit activates in similar ways, whether we perform actions or watch other people perform those same actions.
Read an explanation by Dr. Christopher Fisher through this link: http://www.bmedreport.com/archives/27282.
To be honest, at the beginning I was a bit afraid that the “discovery” of the mirror neuron system was all hype. But, after studying the MNS in detail (the way it functions when we see or hear another person, our feelings when we watch spiders walk over someone else’s body, etc.), I could understand how people with one or more sensory impairment might have difficulty comprehending the emotions of other people.
Presentations CBDA, Canada , March 17 & 18, 2011
Canada has a prominent place in the service for persons with deafblindness. The Canadian Deaf Blind Association plays a vital role in this. The CDBA was formed in 1975 by parents of children with deafblindness who were attending the W. Ross Macdonald School for Students who are Blind and deafblind in Brantford, Ontario. Initially, the CDBA was an advocacy organization representing a small group of children born with deafblindness largely from the congenital rubella epidemic.
Its mission has been expanded from advocacy to include service provision, awareness, public education and research. The CDBA is inclusive and represents all Canadians with deafblindness. CDBA has 7 chapters, representing most of the Canadian Provinces.
I was invited by the Ontario Chapter to speak about the limbic system. During a previous visit to Ontario I had spoken with the Director of Training & Consultation, Ms Sue Hall, that I was getting very much involved in the new findings of the neuro sciences on the early brain structures and how this new ideas could effect our work.
The Director of The deafblind Central: Michigan’s training and resource Project invited me to spend 4 days (March 13-17, 2011) with them to demonstrate and to discuss the Child Guided assessment techniques: the Van Dijk Approach.
Over the last years I have several times collaborated with this organization, which is associated with Central Michigan University. The organization of my trip has been always perfect and also this time. The Director Beth Kennedy and her Assistant Jennifer had selected 9 children to assess.
I did this in 3 days and at the 4th day a seminar was organized. The Project is very strong on including intervenors and it was for me no surprise to find so many of them in the audience. The format of the seminar was quite unique.
Texas Symposium on Deafblindness, February 4 - 5, 2011
Every two years, the Outreach Programs of Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired (TSBVI) organize a symposium on deafblindness. I was honoured by an invitation to present a keynote address and two breakout sessions at this year’s symposium.
Despite the unusually bad Central Texas weather (snow, ice and slippery roads), which caused over 100 people to cancel, the turnout was very good. Almost 300 parents, professionals and paraprofessionals attended. The symposium’s organization was excellent, as were accommodations at the Omni Austin Hotel.
Many people who came to the symposium had also attended the most recent Deaf-Blind Multihandicapped Association of Texas (DBMAT) annual conference, where I spoke last October, so I carefully previewed the content of my presentations with Chris Montgomery, one of the symposium organizers. I did not want to repeat information I had already presented.
On May 9, 2010, I wrote in my blog about Sam’s appearance on Dutch national television. The program got a lot of attention in the press. Sam’s positive attitude, despite the challenges of deafblindness, as well as severe orthopedic and respiratory problems, was admired all over my country.
When asked how he would rate his Quality of Life, on a scale of 0-10, Sam said 9.2.
In a video clip from the TV broadcast, recorded when Sam was about 5 years old, a doctor advised his parents to discontinue medical treatment for their child. This discussion became a hot issue in the Netherlands, and Sam became a national celebrity.
Among other recognitions, he was invited in December 2010, to open an international Quality of Life symposium in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Then suddenly, during a 2011 New Year’s celebration, Sam passed away.
I was recently surprised to get a phone call from Kentalis’ (my former employer) audiologist Fred Marinus, that Mr Akhil Paul would like to visit me.
Akhil is from India and the Director of Sense international, India. We made an appointment to meet each other in early December at my house in the Netherlands.
The Sense International, India organization was established in 1997 as the first national non governmental organisation in India to support the development of comprehensive services for deafblind people.
It is estimated that this organization reaches about 300.000 deafblind people. The total population of persons with deafblindness in India is about a half million.
During my November trip I visited New York, Maryland and Wisconsin. During this (and earlier) trips I assessed many children, often during live assessments. This was very informative, not only for the parents/educaters, (para)medical staff and teachers, but also for me.
Please read first this full article including the general impression at the end, on which I would like to discuss with you in our forum.
New York
I started my trip in New York at the St Francis de Sales school for Deaf children. This school has a self-contained classroom with 4 deaf blind children. Some of the children I knew from a previous visit. I was asked to pay special attention in my assessment to the challenging behaviours of some of the students. In my approach I tried not to respond negatively when the child tried to hurt me. Aggression towards an adult is often caused by the feeling in the child of being threatened. By staying quiet and responsive often this feeling can be changed.
During the month of October 2010 I have presented seminars at four different places in the USA.
I started at my Alma Mater, Perkins School for the Blind, In Watertown, Mass. The second seminar took place in Jackson, Mississippi. This was followed by a two day seminar in Lubbock, Texas Tech and finally I was the guest speaker for DBmat, the Texas organization of parents of children with multiple disabilities.
I started my trip with a webcast at Perkins School for the Blind. The interviewer was well prepared for the session and addressed mainly the subjects I dealt with in my latest DVD on the limbic system (see webshop: Let's talk Limbic).
The web cast can be viewed shortly at the special page at Perkins web site: http://www.perkins.org/search/search.jsp?query=webcast.
"Teaching strategies of the Van Dijk Curricular Approach" by Dr. Stephanie MacFarland reprinted:
The Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness has started a series of articles which were published in the Journal 10-20 years ago and which are still to be considered important contribution to the field of Blindness and Deafblindness. An authority in the field recommends such a publication and comments on it under the title : This mattered to me.
In the July 2010 Volume of JVIB Dr. Rosanne Silberman (one of our panel members) discusses the article. Stephanie Z.C MacFarland (also a panel member) published in 1995 on Teaching Strategies of the van Dijk curricular approach.
