Helle Selling - Center for Communication and Special Needs
In the Nordic network for tactile language, our starting point is the understanding that all people want to share their feelings, thoughts, and experiences with others. The basic assumption is that language emerges in complex interactions between two or more communication partners, and that all people have an innate ability to engage in communicative relations with others. A challenge many people with congenital deafblindness face is the risks of misunderstandings and no recognition of their communicative agency as their communicative expressions for an untrained eye can be difficult to read. In the field of deafblindness we speak about the low readability of expressions. It is well known that low readability creates a risk of isolation, but if more communication partners get the opportunity to recognise bodily-tactile expressions as language, and thereby make language sensorial accessible for both parties, we contribute to increase readability and thus minimize the risk of experiencing isolation. Through meaningful conversations, the world becomes available to the individual.