Deafblindness has a great impact on our child's social life. Many children have very few interactions with peers. We need to make sure our children have friends and chances to be with other kids their own age. Isolation is a very real concern that we have to make sure doesn't happen to our children.

Social skills are also impacted by deafblindness. Most of us pick up on social do's and don't's by observing others with our vision and hearing. Our children can't “observe” to learn social skills. We need to teach them and help them understand what is appropriate and what is not.

There are four important concepts to teach a child about sex education. They are: what is appropriate versus what is inappropriate and public versus private. We can begin when children are very young. It may be easier to change a diaper in the family room, but that does not help the child learn about public versus private. It is easier to teach sex education to older children when they understand what is appropriate and inappropriate, and what is public and private.

The following links have more ideas on sex and social education.

“Beyond Ms. Manners' Preferences: Improving Social Behavior Patterns” - From the Texas Schools for the Blind and Visually Impaired website

“Toilet Training Children with Deafblindness: Issues and Strategies” - From the See/Hear newsletter.

"Introduction to Sexuality Education for Individuals Who are Deaf-blind and Significantly Developmentally Delayed ” - A DB-LINK publication

“California Deaf Blind Services Newsletter” this Issue has several articles on sexuality, titles include: Taking the Fear Out of Sex Education, Inappropriate Sexual Behaviors:, Puberty Again??, Sexuality and the Deaf-Blind Child:,

“Strategies for Minimizing the Risk of Sexual Abuse” from the California Deafblind Services website

DISH stands for Deafblind Intervention Strategies for the Home,
click here for the intro and index page