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Students with a visual impairment and a concurring hearing impairment are considered deafblind under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 2004. Deafblindness is not limited to students who are totally blind and profoundly deaf; rather, it ensures that when students have a visual impairment as well as a hearing impairment that impacts their learning, appropriate services are in place for them to receive an appropriate education in the school setting. In the United States, the deafblind intervener model has been implemented in some states, whereby the intervener acts as a communication bridge between the student who is deafblind and the student's teacher, peers, and other school community members. However, because the intervener model is not required by law, it has not been adopted in every school district where students who are deafblind attend, leaving these students and their families without the option of having an intervener. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore parents' perspectives when working with their child's deafblind intervener. Eight parents of children with deafblindness who have an intervener were interviewed about their experiences with their child's intervener. Findings from this study are presented, along with implications for practice and future research, to inform the field about the benefits associated with students who are deafblind having support from a deafblind intervener. Themes in the areas of awareness, access, and advocacy are highlighted.
Abstract
Students with a visual impairment and a concurring hearing impairment are considered deafblind under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 2004. Deafblindness is not limited to students who are totally blind and profoundly deaf; rather, it ensures that when students have a visual impairment as well as a hearing impairment that impacts their learning, appropriate services are in place for them to receive an appropriate education in the school setting. In the United States, the deafblind intervener model has been implemented in some states, whereby the intervener acts as a communication bridge between the student who is deafblind and the student's teacher, peers, and other school community members. However, because the intervener model is not required by law, it has not been adopted in every school district where students who are deafblind attend, leaving these students and their families without the option of having an intervener. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore parents' perspectives when working with their child's deafblind intervener. Eight parents of children with deafblindness who have an intervener were interviewed about their experiences with their child's intervener. Findings from this study are presented, along with implications for practice and future research, to inform the field about the benefits associated with students who are deafblind having support from a deafblind intervener. Themes in the areas of awareness, access, and advocacy are highlighted.
Keywords: deafblindness, intervener, parents, access, awareness, advocacy
Darrow (https://orcid.org/0009-0006-4165-1135) is the manager of the CVI Initiative at Anchor Center for Blind Children and a doctoral candidate in the School of Special Education at the University of Northern Colorado. Wanek (https://orcid.org/0009-0002-2810-6352) is an adjunct assistant professor in the Deaf Education and Hearing Science Program at UT Health San Antonio and a doctoral candidate in the School of Special Education at the University of Northern Colorado. Correa-Torres (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0961-0556) is a professor in the School of Special Education at the University of Northern Colorado.
The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA; 2004) defines deafblindness as "concomitant hearing and visual impairments, the combination of which causes such severe communication and other developmental and educational needs that they cannot be accommodated in special education programs solely for children with deafness or children with blindness" (§ 300.8 (c) (2)). It should be noted that while IDEA uses a hyphen on the word "deaf-blindness," we will use "deafblindness" without the hyphen in this article because we recognize it as a unique condition rather than the combination of two separate conditions (National Center on Deafblind-ness [NCDB], 2024a, 2024b). Though the definition of deafblindness emphasizes the need for specialized instruction, IDEA makes few provisions for children who are deafblind within the regulations. Section 1414 of IDEA (2004) discusses the development of an individualized education program (IEP) and references children who are blind or visually impaired (BVI) and the need for braille instruction; it further discusses children who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) and the need to consider language and opportunities for direct communication with peers and professionals (IDEA, §1414 (d)(3)(B)(iii-iv)). However, it does not discuss the unique needs of children who are deafblind, nor does it include the support of interveners.
The 2022 National Deafblind Child Count Report identified 10,585 school-age children who were eligible for state deafblind project services (NCDB, 2023). However, most recent reports from the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) state that there are only 1,737 school-age children (ages 5-21 years) who are deafblind being served under IDEA Part B, which accounts for less than 1% of the total population of students in special education (OSEP, 2023). The NCDB asserts that the difference between their child count report and OSEP's report is due to states being told to only count students as deafblind if that is their sole disability, yet this statistic is still concerning (NCDB, 2023). While the deafblind disability category has a very low incidence, there are still several thousand students who are eligible for deafblind services, and there is a need to provide these students with appropriate education services.
The NCDB provides a list of teacher preparation programs that include content in deafblindness, but there is no unified professional credential for teachers who work with students who are deafblind; rather, they are either teachers of the visually impaired, teachers of the deaf/ hard of hearing, or special educators who have a concentration degree or certificate including deafblindness (NCDB, 2022). Recent research is still explaining the impact and need for interveners (Brum & Bruce, 2023), and there is still a need for more relevant studies. While there is general information about what an intervener is, how an intervener supports students who are deafblind, and how to advocate for intervener support in a student's education program, there is limited research on the parents' perspective and their experiences when working with an intervener (McKittrick, 2022).
A deafblind intervener is a person who works closely with children who are deafblind by interacting directly with the child and anyone the child communicates with, using an appropriate form of communication to engage the student in two-way interactions (Probst & Morgan, 2022). Interveners facilitate the learning of students who are deafblind in the classroom by empowering those students to make their own decisions (Morgan, 2001). Furthermore, the Council for Exceptional Children's (CEC) Division on Visual Impairments and Deafblindness emphasizes the role of the intervener as one of two distinct levels of teaching personnel that are "particularly valuable to the education of children who are deafblind" (Bruce et al, 2020, p. 5).
In the United States, each state has varying degrees of legislation regarding interveners, with some providing services in the home and community, some providing services in educational settings, and some having no provisions for interveners at all (NCDB, 2024a, 2024b). There have been increasing efforts in recent years to raise awareness and pass federal legislation about the need for qualified interveners, including the Alice Cogswell and Anne Sullivan Macy Act (Zambone & Alsop, 2009; Cogswell-Macy Act, 2024). The Cogswell-Macy Act (2024) has been introduced to Congress and would bolster IDEA and provisions for students who are DHH, BVI, and deafblind, specifically requiring intervener services to be listed as a related service for students who are deafblind (Cogswell-Macy Act, 2024). The timing of the writing of this article is such that the bill has been introduced in Congress, but nothing has been passed.
According to Probst and Morgan (2022), there is a need for deafblind students to have access to trained interveners and an awareness of how the use of an intervener benefits students who are deafblind and their parents. Probst and Morgan (2022) also suggest that interveners can be an essential service for children who are deafblind; however, the 2022 National Deafblind Child Count report revealed that only 8% of students were known to receive intervener services in the United States (NCDB, 2023). The lack of interveners for school-age students with deafblindness is compounded by the challenge that young children face in accessing support during early childhood. The prevailing practice delays intervener involvement until the child starts school (U.S. Department of Education, n.d.), which may contribute to increased barriers, preventing more families with children who are deafblind from receiving services from interveners in the first 3 years of their child's life.
To combat the lack of trained professionals, the NCDB has worked toward creating a comprehensive system of training personnel in deafblind education (Parker & Nelson, 2016). This includes the
Intervener Training Pilot Project from September 2017 to May 2018 using a combination of the Open Hands, Open Access Intervener training modules, and the National Intervener Certification E-Portfolio modules (Probst & Morgan, 2022). This pilot project included 20 participants from 10 different states who were divided into three cohorts based on their familiarity with the CEC's competencies for interveners; participants were more likely to complete the training if they already had some familiarity with children who are deafblind (Probst & Morgan, 2022). These results showed that this program is an efficacious way to train interveners but also highlights the importance of raising awareness for the field.
Few studies have been conducted over the years regarding interveners. Alsop et al. (2006) reported on the processes for interventions provided by interveners to students who are deafblind by creating access to visual and auditory comprehension. The study was comprehensive and discussed access to environmental information, communication methods, social-emotional well-being, and the primary roles of the intervener, along with recommendations for planning programs. Zambone and Alsop (2009) also emphasized the need for highly qualified interveners; they advocated for creating national competencies and a national credential for deafblind interveners to work with deafblind youth. With the competencies available today, this current study can pull data from Zambone and Alsop's (2009) work to support the goals of improving access to interveners.
Despite the limited research on deaf-blindness and interveners, there are resources available for students in every state, which can be accessed through NCDB's State Deafblind Projects. State Deafblind Projects support families by providing them with a variety of resources and services to support their children with deafblindness (NCDB, 2024a, 2024b). While there is a lack of research on interveners, there is even less research related to the parents' experience when they worked with their child's deafblind intervener. However, Withrow (2017) explains a personal account of her experiences raising a son who is deafblind and provides resources that other families can access. She shared that after establishing that a deafblind child has a family that is loving and supportive, the other most impactful things for children who are deafblind are early intervention services, taking advantage of what the State Deafblind Project have to offer, and accessing the services of an intervener (Withrow, 2017). This personal account provided by Withrow supports the basis of this study, which seeks to investigate the importance of widespread access to interveners in the first years of life for a child who is deafblind.
The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand the parents' experience and perspective when working with their child's deafblind intervener. The perspectives from parents will provide additional information about what families experience when their children are young and how they access the world with dual-sensory loss. The significance of this study comes from the gap in the literature related to deafblind interveners. There is limited research on interveners and even less research related to the parents' experience when they worked with their child's deafblind intervener. The findings from this study will bring awareness to practitioners who work with students who are deafblind. The benefits shown from the parents' experience are explained and connected to the need for more intervener training and more awareness of this support. The additional significance of this study lies in considering how important communication is for all people, including children with disabilities. When communication is enhanced for children who are deafblind, their world becomes bigger and more meaningful because of the access they gain to express their wants, needs, and emotions. This study addressed the following research question: What are the experiences parents have when raising young children who are deafblind and working with their children's deafblind interveners?
Method
The primary goal of this study was to learn about the parents' experience raising a child who is deafblind and working with an intervener. We also sought to contribute to the literature by informing families of infants and young children with deafblindness about the availability and expertise of interveners. We implemented a phenomenological approach to qualitative research, as outlined by J. W. Creswell and Poth (2018), as the methodology that guided this research study.
Phenomenology
We designed this study to reflect our goals, trying to understand a phenomenon of the human experience. Paulo Freire, a noted philosopher in critical inquiry, emphasized that we cannot reach full humanity individually and must pursue this in fellowship and solidarity (Crotty, 1998). This concept led us to design a study that would help us recognize and appreciate the experiences of parents raising a child who is deafblind, with the hope that by being more familiar with aspects of the intervening experience, we can use this information to inform other families and professionals in the field about the impact that intervener support has on children who are deaf-blind. We sought to remain objective observers of the subjective experiences of the research participants by bridling our personal experiences in our discussions and subsequent data analysis.
J. W. Creswell and Poth (2018) define phenomenology as a qualitative research methodology that studies the lived experiences of people experiencing the same phenomenon. We recognize raising a child who is deafblind as a phenomenon, and we are interested in the parents' experience with this phenomenon, especially as it relates to working with deafblind interveners. Considering our research question, it was imperative to gain insight into the individual experiences of our participants, which indicated that the research method best suited for our study was phenomeno-logical, as defined by J. W. Creswell and Poth (2018).
Theoretical Perspective
Critical inquiry is a method of gathering data through multiple perspectives to construct informed theories and ideas that lead to improvements, particularly in a population that is oppressed or disadvantaged (Crotty, 1998). Interveners connect children who are deafblind to the world around them, which is critical to their development and human experience. We also framed this study with a disability lens, recognizing that a child who is deafblind is not flawed and acknowledging this aspect of human differences (J. W. Creswell & Poth, 2018). The overarching mission of this study was to uphold these theories and perspectives so that this information can be used to improve the human experience for other children who might benefit from working with a deafblind intervener.
Setting and Participants
To begin this study, the three researchers first obtained institutional review board approval. Following approval, a recruitment letter explaining the study's purpose and how it would be conducted was distributed to various networks involved with the deafblind community. The dissemination of electronic recruitment fliers included at least 10 websites and social media platforms of deafblind communities, state departments of education, and national conferences (sharing through the spread of word). The sampling method for this study can best be characterized as snowball sampling, where information about the study was sent to people who would have a connection with a parent or caregiver who met the participant parameters. Those people were also encouraged to share the recruitment flyer with others. Due to the low-incidence nature of deafblindness and even lower occurrence of children receiving intervener services, this type of convenience sampling was necessary to use with this heterogeneous group to better embrace the limitations of the sampling (Emerson, 2021).
A total of eight parents from two western states in the United States participated in this study. The sample consisted of six mothers and two fathers of children with deafblindness who have or have had an intervener. The ages when their children began receiving intervener services ranged from 6 months to 19 years, with the average age being approximately 7 years. Pseudonyms used for the participants and information about their demographics can be found in Table 1.
Data Collection
Parents who were interested in participating in the study were asked to contact the researchers by email. After the initial contact, researchers shared the informed consent form for the potential participant to review, ask questions, and sign. Once verbal or written consent was obtained, two of the researchers scheduled a meeting with their assigned participants to conduct the individual interview. These interviews averaged about 20 min in length and were conducted through a video-conferencing platform and in person for one instance. The semistruc-tured interviews included questions about the participants' knowledge and understanding of deafblind interveners, the supports provided by the interveners, information about when their child started receiving intervener services, and their experiences having access to a deafblind intervener among others. Additionally, demographic data, such as the age of the child, and age at diagnosis, were collected.
Data Analysis
Each interview was audio recorded and transcribed to allow the researchers to code the data and then reviewed for accuracy by the researcher who conducted the interview. Transcripts were also sent to the study participants to allow them to review what they said and provide feedback if they felt inclined to do so. Following Moustakas's (1994) approach to phenomenological research, open coding of the data was used to identify significant statements and themes throughout transcriptions of the interviews completed. This occurred through repeated readings of the transcripts, highlighting keywords and phrases, and developing clusters of meanings (J. W. Creswell & Poth, 2018). This helped identify common themes among the participants and experiences unique to individual participants. All three researchers analyzed the transcripts for 60% of the data and reviewed the codes identified from each interview and transcript to ensure agreement about the open coding procedures and overall data analysis through peer review. Intercoder agreement was established as two or more coders agreed on the codes used for the same statements in the interviews (J. W. Creswell & J. D. Creswell, 2023).
Study Rigor
This study drew on researcher triangula-tion, whereby researcher perspectives were considered, especially since the researchers come from different work and research backgrounds, which helped us consider how our work complemented the study (Lahman, 2024). To ensure trustworthiness and rigor in this study, we recorded the interviews and created transcriptions for each interview. This validated the data collected and allowed cross-checking among researchers. Continuity was created among the interviews by recording all of them. Transcription technology was also used to ensure the accuracy of the transcriptions. Once these recordings were transcribed, the researchers met to review findings and discuss themes and significant statements. Additionally, we bridled our personal experiences throughout the study to enhance our understanding of the phenomenon. Stutey et al. (2020) highlights the practice of bridling as a method of intentionally reflecting on personal beliefs and understandings to emphasize the researchers' relationship to the phenomenon. In our own reflections, we believe in the concept that the sooner a child receives intervention services, the better, which affected the questions we asked and how we asked them. We also believe that children who are deafblind should have access to highly qualified professionals, including interveners. Each researcher had their own experiences prior to this study, which are listed in Table 2. Because of our limited experience working with deafblind interveners, we did not feel the need to bracket our experiences.
Findings
Findings from this study showed the common themes that participants shared about their experiences working with a deafblind intervener. The themes that emerged from the data and that were most prevalent throughout the interviews were awareness, access, and advocacy. Awareness was discussed regarding families lacking awareness of deafblind interveners when their children were young and regarding the parents' perspectives of wanting to spread awareness now that their children have interveners and the benefits that it can have in the lives of other families. Access was commonly discussed in the interviews as it related to each child's limitations caused by deaf-blindness. Once children started working with an intervener, their access to communication, the community, educational services, and parents' ability to relate to their children increased. The last major theme that emerged from the data was advocacy, which was depicted in parents' experiences of wanting the appropriate support for their children while they were in school and out in the community. Each of the themes is discussed in detail below.
Awareness
Awareness, or lack thereof, about deaf-blind interveners was a common point of discussion in the interviews. When participants learned of their child being deafblind, most families were not immediately informed of interveners and the support that they could provide. Thus, most of the children in this study did not receive intervener support until a few years after being identified as having deafblindness. Christina's child, for example, did not start working with an intervener until after he had turned 19 years old. She explained that her son, "had interpreters, he had one-on-one sign language paraprofessionals, but he never had an intervener." Angela shared that she was made aware of interveners at a conference when her daughter was 2 years old and stated, "We just were fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time, because it is not a common thing they talk about." Holly's experience of working with an intervener began after her daughter turned 15 years old, which led to a newfound perspective on her daughter's behaviors. Holly said that "just having the understanding of her behaviors based on her vision and her hearing, rather than thinking that she was being obstinate or defiant (...) is a 180-degree pivot from what we were doing before." While it was more common for families to find out about intervener support later in their children's lives, Daniel's daughter started receiving deafblind intervener support earlier in her life and he says, "I think that is why she is doing so well (...) they taught us a lot of things about (...) working with kids with deafblindness, how to give her multiple cues, physical cues, verbal cues, audio cues, that I think it has become just very ingrained in us."
Access
Increased access was a prominent theme of discussion in the interviews as it was tied to giving parents' children access to communication partners, expressing their wants and needs, and getting access to the community. Each participant explained barriers to access in terms of their child's access to academics, social experiences, and most importantly, relationships. Bethany shared an example of her child's experience with school by saying the following:
When we had paraprofessionals that were not as skilled, or we had ones that were under the label of intervener without actually having done the intervener training, we realized that people consistently vastly underestimated [my child]. And once we finally got a nationally credentialed intervener who knew what she was doing, she was experienced, she was amazing, and it really opened up the door to see what [my child] really understands.
Bethany accredited these advances to the personalized modifications developed by the nationally credentialed intervener program, which were not considered by previous paraprofessionals who were neither trained nor skilled at working with individuals with deafblindness. Elizabeth describes the experience with her child's intervener as liberating because when she sent her medically fragile child to school, she trusted the whole educational team because the intervener taught others about the child's abilities, not his disabilities.
An example of a deafblind child's experience of working with an intervener and having increased access to the community came from Christina. She reported that after her son had an intervener for a few months, he attended his high school prom, which was a highlight not only for him but for his parents as well. Working with his intervener gave him the opportunity to interact with peers in a way he had never done before; it also gave him the opportunity to interact with the community of peers in a way his parents thought it should always be when raising a teenage boy. Christina explained this by saying, "we are seeing so much confidence in him now that he is out with her, and (...) feeling like he's got that companionship and support feels so different [for us]." Each of the study participants reported how positively impacted they were by having an intervener and, in the case of the child who went to prom, his experience has been life-changing because of the confidence he has now that he has a sense of companionship in an intervener who supports him and takes him out in the community to experience life differently.
Advocacy
Study participants described difficulties navigating systems to obtain intervener services for their deafblind child. Participants shared how they met resistance from school districts when attempting to specify the need for support provided by interveners. Considerable barriers existed before school districts agreed to include interveners in IEPs. Bethany shared her experience with the school districts not adequately recognizing intervener support by saying, "there is (...) cross over between the paraeducator, a paraprofessional, and intervener, that they often get lumped together by school districts (...) both in pay and in expectations and responsibilities." Further, she described interveners as having a unique role and perspective in her child's life because of the personalized and appropriate modifications that are grounded in their familiarity with her child. She said her son is better able to "communicate his needs and desires (...) because there was somebody who had the expertise in training (...) and managed to figure out that he could [communicate this way]". Other professionals cannot begin to grasp this level of intentionality due to their lack of trusting relationships, training, and experience.
Study participants discussed the need for qualified professionals to fill the role of interveners. As Garret pointed out about his experience with his child's deafblind intervener, it has been crucial to him knowing the qualifications the intervener has to work with his child; he is assured knowing his child is less frustrated because his modes of communication are understood by the intervener. Similarly, some participants of this study expressed the need for better-defined roles and qualifications because the role of an intervener is fluid and ever-changing.
Discussion
While the participants addressed many important points during the interviews, the three main themes that emerged from the data were awareness, access, and advocacy. Alsop et al. (2006) discussed the need for deafblind interveners in early intervention by stating how deafblindness affects all areas of development, especially those related to communication. As Ferrell et al. (2014) stated, "The effect of deaf-blindness is multiplicative, not additive" (p. 64). Intervener support should be shared with families as soon as possible once the identification of deafblindness is made to increase the awareness that families have. Had the study participants had awareness of deafblind intervener support earlier in their children's lives, their children's developmental skill outcomes may have been different. Some study participants stated that they often mistook their child's inability to communicate as behavioral issues; Angela shared that a common misconception that too many deafblind children have to live with is that the results of being deaf and blind have implications for significantly slower cognitive processing. As Brum and Bruce (2022) explain, however, slower cognitive processing does not equate to an inability to comprehend and apply information. With an intervener's support, misconceptions such as these can be diminished. Personalized interventions and modifications have shown that the deafblind individual can comprehend and apply information, as evidenced by our study participants and by Brum and Bruce (2022).
Giving students access to communication partners, experiences, and trusting relationships implies that their comprehension of the world can have a higher quality. An additional way in which intervener support positively affected participants' lives was by getting children out in the community and providing them with experiences they otherwise may not have had. Alsop et al. (2006) explain that having an intervener supports a child who is deafblind by developing and maintaining a trusting relationship to promote further social-emotional well-being. The intervener who supported Christina's son going to prom did just that; promoted social and emotional well-being and gave the child increased access to communication and the community.
As documented nearly 3 decades ago by Watkins et al. (1994), Project Validation of the Intervener Program collected considerable quantitative and qualitative data evidencing the necessity of interveners for families who have young children with deafblindness. Probst and
Morgan (2022) discussed the necessity for deafblind students to access intervener services and for interveners to receive competent training. The NCDB (2023) reported that in 2018, only 7% of deafblind students were known to have received intervener services, which points to the need for more qualified personnel to increase that percentage proving that deafblind students are receiving appropriate services. It was evident that study participants used strategies for advocacy recommended by McKittrick (2022) while negotiating with frustrating IEP teams as they eventually overcame barriers.
The common themes of awareness, access, and advocacy provided an understanding of the parents' experiences with a child who is deafblind and the implications for how to provide other children with these necessary services, including suggestions for changes in procedures and ideas for future research. Results from this study will inform caregivers, educators, policymakers, and others about the positive impact that having a deafblind intervener could have on students who are deafblind and pose the opportunity for further research on this topic. Data from this study also support the need for legislation advocating for improved educational opportunities for children who are deafblind, such as the Alice Cogswell and Anne Sullivan Macy Act. Additionally, results from this study may reinforce why interveners who attain the national intervener certification or credential should be acknowledged and recognized by their state. Lack of acknowledgment and recognition on the state level hinders the motivation to complete training and attain certification (Probst & Morgan, 2022), which in turn contributes to the shortage of interveners available.
Limitations and Implications for Future Research
A wealth of insight into many aspects of the parents' experiences was gained through this phenomenological study. There are, however, potential limitations not previously considered in the study's design. The first limitation was the sample size. However, considering that deaf-blindness is a low-incidence disability (OSEP, 2023), it is expected that the sample size be smaller, as well. An important characteristic that was identified among the participants is that every parent's experience is unique. With this understanding and assumption, we assume a larger sample size would provide a broader range of experiences and insights. Additionally, our sample was based on network sampling and was limited to two different states in the United States. Experiences for these families are likely specific to that area due to state and regional policies and access to resources that are not representative of the population as a whole.
An essential aspect of a phenomenological study is the ability to bracket personal experiences to enhance the essence of this study being solely from the participant's perspective (J. W. Creswell & Poth, 2018). This was a relatively easy task given that two of the three researchers had no direct experience working with deafblind interveners. However, our lack of experience with interveners also meant that we were unfamiliar with some of the topics that the participants addressed, which could have resulted in significant aspects of their experiences going unnoticed. Our bridled experiences imply that we believe the earlier a child receives intervention services, the better, and all of these considerations led this research group to consider and plan for future studies.
This research study informed our understanding of the support that families received when their child had a deafblind intervener. The main implications were the effects of access, communication, and suggestions for future research and practice. Future research on resistance from school districts to specify intervener support in IEPs should identify what pieces of information school districts need before they can include intervener support in an IEP Resistance to specific intervener support on an IEP may stem from the lack of clarity surrounding intervener capabilities and certification. It may also stem from a lack of available interveners. If a school district cannot hire an intervener, that same school district is still legally bound to provide that service. In a case such as this, including legally binding verbiage in the IEP may be problematic for school district administration if it is unclear how the provision of services will be secured. Another area for future research related to school district shortcomings is to identify the unique capabilities of interveners and how these differ from the capabilities of other members of the special education team. It would be helpful also to investigate what would constitute an appropriate salary for an intervener that would be commensurate with training, skills, experience, and expertise. Improvement in this area could go a long way toward encouraging more individuals to pursue intervener certification and training.
Additionally, future research on establishing competencies for training interveners is still needed due to current confusion regarding certification and credentials. It would benefit the appropriate agencies to include clear delineations for standard requirements for obtaining intervener credentials. Therefore, another suggested area for future research would be to examine potential requirements for interveners. Increased clarity in these areas would increase the level of awareness and outreach to families who have deafblind children. A greater understanding of the intervener's role and competencies can help practitioners and organizations provide specific literature to educate families about the possibilities of deaf-blindness, its implications, and the existence of interveners.
Lastly, one of our interview questions sought to find whether parents thought that having intervener services earlier in their child's lives would have yielded different results, implying the assumption that children who are deafblind are not receiving interveners early in life. However, six out of the eight participants' children started receiving services before 5 years of age. Future research on the experiences that families had when their child started receiving deafblind intervener support after the age of 5 or 10 years would shed light on the need to intervene sooner.
Conclusion
While interveners have many unique skills that set them apart from other special education professionals, the most impressive factor about their role in a deafblind child's life may be that they go beyond providing access to educational services and the community environment by empowering deafblind students to make their own decisions. As most of the literature is focused on students aged 3-21 years, this study was successful in providing data regarding how accessing intervener services in the first 3 years of a deafblind child's life can have implications for that child's future abilities to connect to their world for the rest of their life. As Christina closed her interview, so we will close out this article by quoting her statement of the overall experience that her family had with her son's deafblind intervener:
It has been literally life changing. And I guess I'll end with that. It is life-changing to see how he can interact outside of mom and dad when he has people around him that understand the way he communicates.
Author Note
Address for Correspondence: Elise N. Darrow, University of Northern Colorado, School of Special Education, Campus Box 141, Greeley, CO 80639.
Email: [email protected]
Conflicts of Interest
We have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
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