How do the deaf and blind communicate?

I'm in the process of leaf-teaching myself ASL as research for a graphic novel/radio play I'm working on. The main character is a blind superheroine living in modern-day Amsterdam. Her best friend is her deaf cousin. I wanted to be able to portray both of them realistically- so along with doing extensive research on Dutch culture and real locations in Amsterdam, I'm also trying to learn more about deaf and blind culture.

There are many challenges I face in creating this story, and one of them is how to show a blind and a deaf person conversing. I haven't been able to find any good references for it, so I'm not really sure how it works. I was hoping some people here could help me with that. =)

Videos in particular would be great, so I can see exactly how it works. I've found it surprisingly difficult to find any information on this!

Tactile sign.

I'm deaf and I have some friends who are blind. Communication can be challenging of course but here's how we do it.

Now keep in mind that I can speak fairly well. The first half of my life I could hear well enough to get by in normal school and everything with my hearing aids. I became deaf in my early 20's. So my point is I was able to hear when I learned to speak. So although my speech has a sleight slur, it's for the most part understandable. The only time it's a problem is if I talk to fast and that's easily remedied by just repeating is slower.

Ok, first of all I read my blind friends lips. This can be challenging because sometimes she talks to me and doesn't know I'm not looking at her. But while looking at her when she talks it's just like me talking to anyone. With one big exception. She always wears dark sunglasses. This impairs my ability to lip read her. Because lip reading isn't just about their mouth shape. We also read facial and body expressions. Much of our facial expressions come from their eyes so when someone is wearing sunglasses it makes it harder to understand them. But, with practice we got a little better at communication. Because the more you talk to someone the easier it becomes to read them. This is why deaf people will look at someone they know if a stranger is talking to them. Because they hope the one they know will repeat it for them because it's easier to read someone you're talked to before.

When I first meet her she surprised me because she knew a little sign language. Mostly just finger spelling but she knows a few sign words as well. This is very helpful because if I have to have her repeat something because I just can't pick it up. She can finger spell it for me.

Another method your character might want to make use of if the situation arrives is foot stomping to get my attention. If my friend says something to me and I don't reply she figures I'm not looking. So she'll stomp her foot on the floor to get my attention.

So basically the hardest part is her not knowing when I'm looking or not. That's our biggest obstacle in communication.

Now, if your deaf character cannot speak this is going to be a lot more challenging for you. As Bottesini suggested the most obvious solution is Tactile sign. If you're unfamiliar with the term you might have seen the movie "The Miracle worker" about Hellen Keller. This is how they communicated by holding the hand that is signing and feeling what letter sign they are making.

On a side note. Communication with my friend is challenging but because we are both the kind of people who are open about it. In other words we have come to terms with out condition and can have a laugh about it. This makes our communication much easier. Because we are both comfortable enough to realize when a mistake happens and it's not the end of the world. We can laugh at the situation and not feel any embarrassment. If either of us hadn't come to terms with our "Difference" then it would be a real task.

Just to give you an example. A few months after I meet this friend she hired me to do a magic show for her kids. During my show my friend actually fell asleep (Magic is not something you're suppose to fall asleep to. LOL). After words she came up to me and said, "Ron, you know I love you but a magic show is like having a gold fish tank to me". LOL

I hope some of this is helpful.

Ron Jaxon

Thank you so much, Ron, this was exactly the detailed sort of explanation I was looking for! =)

The example you mentioned reminded me a bit of the animatic I made for this same story. It's basically a storyboard for the intro to the story, if it was a movie.

It opens with Emily, the deaf girl, sitting at a boy's choir concert in a Dutch church. She stares at the ceiling and yawns, obviously quite bored. She's startled out of her thoughts by her blind cousin, Sofie, who pinches her to make her stop. Sofie is kind of a classical music fanatic. XD

Here's the video if you're interested, just keep in mind that none of the artwork is finished (I even used some photos for parts I would draw later.)
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_T7wO2tUjA]YouTube - Nightingale Opening (Animatic)[/ame]

That looks great. Feel free to contact me if you need any more help or suggestions. In fact I'd like to PM you about something if you don't mind.

Ron Jaxon

Thanks! And yes, feel free to give me any ideas you might have. The story is still pretty conceptual. In fact, I have yet to figure out who exactly Sofie's enemies are- or rather, what she's fighting for. I want it something tailored to her personality, rather than the typical "bad guy of the day."

I recommend reading articles by Liz Ball...she is a deafblind person in the UK and her writing is very interesting!

BBC - Ouch! (disability) - Features - Communication crazy

She mentions something called Fingerbraille which is used in Japan - someone taps braille into the hand. I once read that Samuel Morse, the inventor of Morse code, used the code to communicate with his deaf wife by tapping letters onto her hand. Not sure if that's true.

I have a deaf friend who is engaged to a blind hearing guy.She has no oral skills and he is learning ASL for her. Everyone in our circle are really really fascinated by their love and ability to overcome any barriers they have with each other. Wow!

The sunglasses and lipreading is a good point. Had it happen - running a crew in the spring then summer. Was able to lipread and understand, then the sunglass time of summer came and comprehension nosedived. Thanks Ron I thought it was just me.

some amateur short movie

hi, i am an amateur movie maker. i live in Indonesia. (some place in the middle of the world,ever heard of bali???). i have a same concept for my short movie. it's about a romantic relationship between a deaf person with no oral skills and a blind person. and i have a hard time to figure out how they are communicating. i googled everywhere, and find some device (svlt) which i dont even know the effectiveness (perhaps, just some prototype). but for sure, the traditional way is much more heart-touching. it's about feeling and understanding. and this thread is a really big help for me to understand the way they are communicating. thanks for you all. i'll dedicate this movie 4 u all.

ps: sorry, bad grammar.

shel90 said:

I have a deaf friend who is engaged to a blind hearing guy.She has no oral skills and he is learning ASL for her. Everyone in our circle are really really fascinated by their love and ability to overcome any barriers they have with each other. Wow!

Click to expand...

that is really cool!

shel90 said:

I have a deaf friend who is engaged to a blind hearing guy.She has no oral skills and he is learning ASL for her. Everyone in our circle are really really fascinated by their love and ability to overcome any barriers they have with each other. Wow!

Click to expand...

Wow, you don't really see that a lot.

I would imagine that Virginia School for the deaf and blind go through this all the time.

That is nice respect! cool I am glad of you appreciate to you

Another option is if the deaf person is non-oral, they can type to the blind person on their computer which has text-to-speech (or magnification). If the blind person knows the print alphabet, with a little practile, the deaf person can print block letters on their palm.