Social Interaction Of Children With Deafblindness In Special Schools And Units In Kenys

In recent years, the study of interaction processes of children with deafblindness themselves and with others has proven useful for a better understanding of these children in school and home settings. Thus, it is understood that there is a difference between the potential repertoire of social skills and its implementation in particular communicative interactions. An important part of social and communicative knowledge is gained through interaction with people, involvement in activities, use of facilities, and in the modes of communication. The purpose of this study was to gain information and to describe the social interactions of children with deafblindness in special schools and units in Kenya. Based on the research questions, the following themes guided the study:people who interact with children who are deafblind; activities that children with deafblindness are involved in; facilities which children with deafblindness use to enhance social interaction; and modes of communication used in interaction.A qualitative approach and a case study design were used to collect in-depth information. Interviews as the main method, combined with observations and document analysis, were utilized in data collection. Two children who have deafblindness, with some residual vision and hearing, two teachers, two parents and two housemothers were the main informants.The results obtained indicated that the interaction of these children varied both in quality and quantity among themselves and those around them. Children with deafblindness in this study participated with their peers and adults through their use of facilities and materials when these were available. The two children with deafblindness in this study were of course not representation of anyone except themselves within an extremely heterogeneous group of multi-handicapped children. Functional communication observed indicated that there is some kind of social interaction between children with deafblindness, adults and other children. However, the interaction in communication varies from individual to individual due to their cognitive, perceptive, emotional and social conditions. There is a need for intervention strategies to be put into place by caregivers at all levels of social development and communication. In order to discover these strategies, a qualitative "here and now" interaction and further research is needed to investigate both aspects of the physical and social environment, and to investigate the interactive processes, which happen between the individual with deafblindness and the environment. This calls for a replacement of the old thinking, by ideas about how to intervene, in the interaction itself, to make it an interaction of quality and of here and now. Children with deafblindness should also be offered an opportunity to be active participants in their own development and in performing their own learning processes. What they learn during these processes is unpredictable and will depend on individual children with deafblindness.