Experiences of families raising a child who is deafblind and teacher response to those shared experiences.

摘要

This qualitative phenomenological action research study examined the experiences of families raising a child who is deafblind and identified impact on teacher perception when family experiences were shared as a short digital movie. Five families who all had a child on the Kentucky DeafBlind Project census and their child's lead teacher participated in individual interviews using photovoice. Family photovoice interviews uncovered five overarching themes: medical, positive descriptors, family and community, likes/don't like, and parents' love. Teacher interviews identified a positive shift in teacher perception after viewing the short digital movie created from the photos and experiences from the families. Teacher positive shifts included: "student can't do to student can do", "using medical descriptors to using human descriptors", "feeling disconnected with the family to feeling connected to the family", and teacher self-examination of can't do to can do. All five teachers agreed on the value of the short digital movie.