[nfb-db] Deafblind Group Communication

[John Lee Clark]

Mussie:

But the degree of sight or hearing shouldn't be a point at all.  If it was
the point in anything, that thing would be very sick.

When I organize DB events here, I always look at the communication mode of
choice.  What degree of vision or hearing doesn't matter because it would
still tell me absolutely nothing about what the person would need or want.
In our local community, among the merely legally blind, there are close
range listeners, far range listeners, trackers, and tactilers.  In the lower
vision group, again, there are close and far range listeners, trackers, and
tactilers.  In the very blind group, there are, again, close and far range
listeners, trackers, and tactilers.  Likewise, there are FM users, C-print
users, and signers in all groups of hearing levels.

Maybe in your community there is a stronger tendency to use all the vison or
hearing that's left, and so your legally blind people would mostly be either
far or close range visual listeners, your lower vision people would mostly
be trackers or close range, and your very blind people would mostly be
trackers if they can squeeze by or reclutantly be tactilers.  I don't know.
But here and in all the states I have visited so far, degree or vision or
hearing means nothing, really, about anything practical.

As for "impairment," I better say nothing, lest I'll end up writing a book!

John