News and other articles

Save Sight Institute Family Day – Part 1: Transitions and Super Teams

Annmaree Watharow and Susannah McNally We are here at the Save Sight Institute Family Day as part of our mission with the Dual Sensory Impairment Project to consolidate partnerships and raise awareness of the issues impacting people and families living with sensory impairments. Our brief today is twofold: a presentation of managing transitions from children’s health care services to adult …

A Report from The United Kingdom

Usher syndrome is the most common cause of deafblindness in people under 65 years of age, accounting for around fifty percent. In most cases, Usher syndrome is the combination of congenital deafness and acquired low vision that degenerates over time. It may be associated with balance disorders and cataracts. The hearing loss is usually stable, but subtypes have been identified …

A Report from Spain

I am in Spain in a town by the Balearic Sea. Not for recreation but for intense work on a new core set for deafblindness in the International Classification of Function (ICF). There’s a beach outside, a waterslide too, and even a roller coaster. But we are inside focused on deciding and debating what features of deafblindness or dual sensory …

International Book Launch

Cover of book with older person image

Lived Places Publishing has recently released Dual Sensory Impairment and the Older Person on their website. Older people with combined hearing loss and low vision, also known as dual sensory impairment living in residential aged care facilities are a forgotten group. Hearing loss, vision loss, loneliness and a rapidly ageing population are global concerns. But older people with dual sensory …

Book Review – True Biz

True Biz Book Cover

Sara Novic, Penguin Random House, 2022 pp ISBN 9780593241509 Through a blend of fiction and creative non-fiction Sara Novic has crafted an urgent and compelling lament of the demise of culturally important Deaf education In America. The fiction takes readers into the pleasures and pains of Deaf communities and outliers, whilst the non-fiction unwraps some mysteries of American sign language …

Book Review – Disrupting the academy with lived experience-led knowledge

Disrupting the Academy with Lived Experience-Led Knowledge book cover

Maree Higgins and Caroline Lenette (eds) Policy Press, Bristol, 2024 pp 194ISBN: 9781447366348 (pbk) Expert-knowers write chapters in this work, challenging academic norms, while providing potent examples of lived experience-led research. The epistemic justice framing in which lived experiences are prioritised and honoured, entwines with social justice. As Estelle Keerthana Ramaswamy notes: ‘Authors should declare their positionality in their research and writing …

Seeing things that aren’t there

Ghost image of a person not there

Last week Annmaree and Suzie travelled to Newcastle to talk on “seeing things that aren’t there” or visual hallucinations, often called Charles Bonnet syndrome.  “Seeing things that aren’t there”, that no one else can see and that are called visual hallucinations. “Seeing things that aren’t there” is very common in people with problems seeing well. Deafblind people “see things that …