Instructional strategies to support shared reading with learners who are deafblind

Abstract

The field of deafblindness has developed evidence-based practices in communication development and intervention, but very little research has been published on literacy. This study examined the survey responses of 84 participants from 25 states, and 10 follow-up interviews to learn more about emerging instructional ideas specific to shared story reading, also known as interactive reading. The thematic analysis resulted in eight themes and associated instructional strategies. Attentional and engagement strategies included unique considerations due to the impact of deafblindness on accessibility and meaning-making. Teachers, interveners, and parents used practices grounded in both the child-guided approach and systematic instructional approach. They shared vocabulary acquisition strategies, pointing to the link between vocabulary and comprehension. Drawing and writing strategies were used to create text and in extension activities. Touch and tactile strategies were used in preparing materials and during shared reading sessions. Participants applied a variety of comprehension strategies including repetition, prediction, and questioning. Across the survey and interview responses, it was evident that participants understood the role of integrating individually appropriate receptive and expressive communication modes/forms in shared reading activities.

Keywords

Child-guided deafblind instructional strategies literacy qualitative shared reading

Introduction

Deafblindness is a very complex disability that creates a set of implications extending beyond the additive effects of the vision and hearing loss (Nelson & Bruce, 2016). This is because vision and hearing are the two distance senses used to support observational and incidental learning. Communication and literacy are key areas that are impacted by the effects of deafblindness, thus requiring direct and extensive intervention. While there is an established research base on some instructional approaches and practices in communication intervention, including child-guided practices (Ferrell et al., 2014), there is a critical need for research to identify instructional strategies to support literacy development (Luckner et al., 2016).

A more comprehensive view of literacy, that extends beyond traditional notions of literacy as reading and writing, is needed to address the highly heterogeneous population of learners who are deafblind. The lessons, materials, and media needed must be suited to the individual needs of each learner. Classic literacy lessons for individuals who are deafblind include daily schedules (also known as calendar systems), story boxes, experience books grounded in the child’s lived experiences, authentic choice-making opportunities and home–school interactive journals (Nelson & Bruce, 2019), with these literacy texts often being co-constructed. Materials may integrate the use of objects, textures, and braille.

Shared story or book reading, a type of read-aloud, is a common and widely used literacy practice involving a learner and an adult who takes turns reading. It can be defined as an activity involving age-appropriate text that is read aloud and interactions around the content of the text are supported. The adult reading partner will select desired learning goals for the shared reading (Hanreddy, 2015) and plan how best to create interactive opportunities. This may include opportunities for the child to comment, conversations about the plot or characters, and comprehension checks during and after the reading. Some researchers refer to shared story or book reading as interactive reading. DeBruin-Parecki (2009) suggested interactive reading strategies to be used with young learners, such as physical proximity, extending knowledge, and making connections to real-life experiences. Shared story reading may take place in the home, school, or other community settings with learners of any age.

The research base for using shared story reading with students with extensive support needs is limited, calling on the need for additional studies (Hudson & Test, 2011). Shared story reading can be integrated into a multicomponent reading intervention that integrates multiple evidence-based strategies such as direct instruction, time-delay, and sight word instruction, as an effective means of supporting literacy skill development for students with intellectual disabilities (Afacan et al., 2018).

There is emerging research on literacy instruction specifically for individuals who are deafblind. Bruce, Nelson, et al. (2016) did a complete review of communication and literacy studies involving children who are deafblind. They identified studies on technology in literacy and other types of literacy lessons, but only one study included a focus on shared reading. McKenzie (2009) conducted a multiple case design study to examine activities and instructional practices in seven classrooms serving children with visual impairment and multiple disabilities, and deafblindness. An observation protocol was used to rate the frequency at which various activities and a few strategies occurred. The most frequently occurring activities were daily news, morning circle, read aloud, and activities that integrated early print and braille experiences. Shared reading was one of the less frequently occurring literacy activities, along with scaffolded writing and discussions about text. She also found that while the classrooms included print rich materials and labeling, much of it was inaccessible to students with visual impairments or deafblindness.

This article describes strategies being utilized with individuals who are deafblind during shared reading activities in school and at home. The data reported are a subset from a larger study on shared reading for individuals who are deafblind. Specifically, this investigation is guided by the following research question: How do parents, teachers, and interveners use shared story reading to support communication and literacy development for their students with congenital deafblindness?

Methods

This article presents findings from a larger mixed method study that included a widely distributed survey with targeted follow-up interviews. Following approval from the institutional review board at the first author’s university, the online survey was disseminated via Qualtrics in the United States through state technical assistance projects and a disability-specific social media page. Before beginning the survey participants signed informed consent. Utilizing a mix of open- and closed-ended questions, the survey collected demographic information, descriptions of the focus student’s expressive and receptive language, and descriptions of how they participate in a shared reading activity. The open-ended questions related to strategies included

Please describe how you and your child/student with deafblindness participate in shared reading activities together.

Are there any specific strategies you use with your child/student during shared reading?

After the survey data were collected, follow-up structured interviews were conducted via a video chat platform and recorded by a graduate student using a interview protocol that contained a predetermined list of questions. Many survey respondents agreed to be interviewed, however, of the 25 participants randomly selected to be interviewed (10 teachers, 10 parents, and 5 interveners) only 10 responded to the request to be interviewed (7 parents and 3 teachers). This may be attributed to the survey being disseminated in the spring and interviews arranged in the summer. Interviews lasted between 20 and 30 min. Selected interview questions that pertained to strategies included the following:

What types of literacy activities to you and the individual participate in together? Probe: Can you describe these activities in more detail?

Are there any specific strategies you use with the individual as you engage in a literacy activity together?

After interviews were conducted, they were transcribed verbatim by the graduate student in preparation for analysis.

Participants

To be included in the study, participants needed to be a credentialed special education teacher, trained intervener, or parent of an individual who is deafblind. In addition, shared story reading needed to be a part of their pre-existing literacy routine. A total of 84 individuals completed the survey including 42 teachers, 6 interveners and 36 parents, representing 25 different states. Also, 10 individuals completed follow-up interviews including 7 parents and 3 teachers.

Analysis

Qualitative analysis was conducted with the survey data followed by interview data. Inductive thematic analysis was applied through the use of open, axial, and selective coding to identify and name concepts and to identify clusters of codes into themes (Flick, 2019). To begin, survey and interview items were organized by question in a table that included all participant responses. Question-by-question the authors engaged in a multiphase analysis process that started with individual open-coding that included initial read through, second reading to highlight important segments of text, and a third reading to revise or add codes. After individually coding a question, the authors would meet for a consensus coding meeting to establish agreement on the codes, creating a new document with revised codes. After this process was completed for all survey and interview items the authors engaged in axial coding for the survey items and then the interview items to identify primary and secondary codes. Finally, the authors engaged in a selective coding process, combining the codes from both the survey and interviews to identify patterns and themes.

Multiple measures were used to ensure trustworthiness and credibility of the qualitative process including researcher reflexivity and particularizability (Brantlinger et al., 2005). As trained and experienced teachers of the deafblind, both authors established researcher reflexivity through frequent discussions regarding their beliefs and assumptions about literacy and shared reading for individuals who are deafblind, maintaining research memos, and addressing assumptions made about the data. Particularizability was supported through the inclusion of rich descriptions of the themes that emerged directly from the data, as well as including direct quotes from participants.

Results

Eight themes were identified that account for the strategies generated by parents, teachers, and interveners of students/children who are deafblind: attention and active engagement, child-guided, systematic instruction, vocabulary acquisition, drawing and writing, touch and tactile, comprehension, and connecting communication forms with literacy. At times a single idea expressed by a participant fit within more than one theme.

Attention and active engagement strategies

Teachers, interveners, and parents discussed how they gained and held the attention of children and youth who are deafblind. They considered the child’s interests when selecting the text. Adults found it necessary to offer some guidance when children selected literacy materials. They created anticipation by relating the child’s background experiences to the text. During shared reading, adults pointed out aspects of the text that they thought would interest the child, but were also observant for those moments when the child’s interest piqued. They supported the child to label pictures and they clarified the meaning of texts. They paused to re-engage the child and to check for understanding. Prediction was a specific engagement strategy mentioned by one adult.

Participants spoke of the importance of reducing distractions, including reduction of noise, movement, and stimulation levels, as well as lighting considerations. One parent remarked that it was important to support their child to “focus on one thing at a time.” Visual-based attentional strategies included consideration of the materials, including the use of brightly colored books. Flashlights or lasers were used to draw attention to a particular aspect in the text (including specific words). Auditory-based attentional strategies included showing emotion, including enthusiasm and exaggerated expression when reading aloud. Adults talked about being more dramatic than usual to gain or regain the child’s attention. While reading with greater enthusiasm attracted the child’s attention, for some this became less important as the child matured. Music, modulation of the adult’s voice, sound effects, and singing were integrated to both gain attention and maintain engagement during shared reading.

Adults sought ways to keep the child engaged, including opportunities to be engaged physically. They also used multimodal approaches that integrated drawing and rhythm. Physical proximity was necessary to the implementation of tactile strategies, including making connections between the handling of objects and their relationship to text. One intervener described this as, “We often sit facing each other, very closely. She enjoys having my mouth close to her ear when I read.” Respondents emphasized the importance of turn-taking and reciprocity during shared reading. One parent remarked, “Oh, he really likes doing the things where he is contributing.” One teacher pointed out that attention and engagement called on adults to use different strategies across students.

Child-guided strategies

Teachers, interveners, and parents applied child-guided strategies during literacy lessons. Subthemes related to the child-guided approach included consideration of the child’s interests and preferences (including choice-making), personalizing literacy, coactive and interactive strategies, and the role of emotion.

Consideration of the child’s interests and preferences included the selection of text written by the child’s preferred authors, co-reading of text, and building on what the child found exciting. Many examples of literacy events that were built on student interests and preferences were shared, including selecting stories of higher interest to the child, integrating music into reading, discussion of pictures of high interest, spelling the child’s preferred words or object names, use of color, and building on the child’s interest in specific words. Multiple teachers and parents, and some interveners remarked about the need to select texts that were connected to the child’s current interests and passions and/or that were familiar topics. Preferences were also sometimes used to gain behavioral momentum, such as playing a favorite verbal game prior to shared reading. Some children required literacy lessons that included opportunities for them to be active. Building on student interests included showing how literacy applied to practical daily activities that they preferred, such as writing shopping lists, and writing a friend. Offering choices, before and during shared reading, was another child-guided strategy that also enhanced engagement.

Personalized literacy involved the use of texts that were about the child’s lived experiences. Adults also discussed the importance of not only selecting texts on preferred topics, but also on topics that were familiar experiences to the child. Some of these texts were co-constructed books about the child’s experiences. Adults also made connections between commercial texts and the child’s repertoire of experiences. The concept of salience was mentioned, which involves being thoughtful that representations or symbols within text are connected to how a child would define a particular experience, which is greatly impacted by deafblindness and parts-to-whole learning.

Coactive and interactive strategies included getting to know the adult communication partner and working on tactile defensiveness through the child-guided approach. Interactive strategies included reading the child’s cues and responding accordingly, providing hands-on coactive activities (including drawing), and co-reading. Coactive drawings were an additional strategy, discussed later in this article.

The role of emotion included building trust between adult and child, the adult’s role in making the child feel safe in different environments, and helping the child to overcome specific fears. Respondents also discussed the importance of making learning fun for each learner. This included exaggerating facial expressions, using emotion in shared reading, being louder than usual, and using rhythms that would be appealing to the child. One teacher reported that in their shared reading sessions, her student liked to give intentionally incorrect responses as a form of joking with her.

Systematic instructional strategies

Teachers, interveners, and parents shared a variety of strategies associated with the systematic instructional approach. Several mentioned the importance of wait time and how their student or child required less wait time as they matured. Consideration of prompting hierarchies and the importance of selecting appropriate prompts for an individual student and situation were mentioned. One participant discussed response time and explained the need to allow enough time for the child to process information and to organize their motor responses. Modeling was mentioned by another participant. Pacing needed to be appropriate for learning to occur. Pause was important to eliciting student responses. Pauses in shared reading also included making time for communication and for drawing about the text. One participant pointed out the need to carefully select the focus of instruction to avoid concept overload which could lead to frustration. Reinforcement was mentioned by several respondents and included what was reinforced (such as time on task) and the types of reinforcers used with individual students/children (tangible, games, and clapping). Half of the interviewees discussed repetition as a strategy, including the importance of consistency and practice to the child’s learning. Consistency included having a routine for how to conduct shared reading, such as reading the book or text the same way, reading the same books at school and at home, acting on related materials (to the text) in the same way, and repetition of preferred and familiar topics across texts. Some participants also discussed the importance of repetition in writing that was connected to shared reading experiences. This included repeated writings about a preferred topic, consistent use of the same writing supports, and repetition of the use of a particular writing structure. Repetition was felt to be important to vocabulary acquisition and comprehension of text. Across time, the strategy of repetition became less important for some students.

Vocabulary acquisition strategies

Teachers, interveners, and parents shared a variety of strategies to support vocabulary acquisition and understanding of symbols over time. Some participants discussed the importance of emphasizing key or core vocabulary selected for an individual child. Pictures, objects, tactile symbols, and line drawings were important to building vocabulary. Combining receptive forms of communication, such as sign (including on the body signing) and speech, was considered helpful to building and reinforcing vocabulary in texts. Pointing out key words within the text supported students to learn new vocabulary. An intervener described supporting vocabulary acquisition as, “She points to pictures, I sign one word that represents the picture. She sign-copies (with encouragement) and I provide more information in sign. She watches.” In addition, the need to memorize some words and to use pictures to support mastery of sight words was mentioned. Writing words was also a vocabulary acquisition strategy. One teacher described how they worked on vocabulary words for each classroom unit, including opportunities for the student to trace the letters of her vocabulary words. Below the teacher described how she supported vocabulary acquisition by developing a personalized vocabulary booklet for the family to pair with a specific experience at the beach.

So, knowing that she was heading to the beach we put one together that had beach, ferry, church, all the things that her mother said that they would be doing, uh, and we made her a little vocabulary booklet so that she can then take that with her to the beach and they can talk about that with her at the beach.

Drawing and writing strategies

Although no question regarding writing was posed in either the survey or the interview, participants made connections between shared reading and writing strategies. They spoke to integrating reading and writing, such as using a symbol from a story in a writing extension activity. Some mentioned materials such as the use of block printing paper to support good spacing of letters and the use of coactive writing with crayons.

Drawing strategies were discussed by multiple participants. One parent mentioned that drawing made literacy accessible for her child. Drawing strategies were connected to writing or considered as writing. Coactive drawing was used to support shared reading of both commercial texts and in co-constructed experience books (which were about an experience of the child’s that may have been shared with the adult reading partner). A teacher described how coactively created drawings were also paired with photographs and PowerPoint text for a student. One parent discussed coactive drawing as a game changer in their learner’s literacy achievement. Co-drawing sometimes involved drawing an entire story with the learner guiding how much time was spent on each drawing, as described below by a parent participant:

We may, you know, takes a long time to draw a story and have him guide how much time he wants to spend on each aspect of the story. Like he will take you back we need to talk more about what is happening on this page, like I need more information there. And he will guide this whole process and it may take an hour. So, he loves that conversation and learning new things and being able to talk about it.

Participants also spoke about the integration of multiple communication forms and spoken languages during writing activities that supported shared reading. This included labeling objects (paired with text) in Spanish. One learner signed and the teaching assistant wrote down the words signed (functioning as a notetaker for the learner). Others used tactile symbols to actually write text. Tactile symbols were used prior to and during shared reading sessions, and for some learners, were paired with braille for receptive literacy.

Touch and tactile strategies

The interviewees discussed learners who used a variety of tactile strategies. A teacher participant mentioned that it required time to develop the touch needed for engaging in literacy.

Okay well first off, so, it took me a very long time and it’s not only me as the vision teacher but the occupational therapist and others to get her to be able to touch things. She could feed herself so she would touch that way, but to get her to touch braille or tactile symbols or tangible symbols was uh, it took months for that to happen . . . . So, I would offer her something that she desired if she just, uh, if I’m reading a little story to her, that has braille, um, I would offer her something she wanted. So, if she just touched slightly, she would get a reward of her choosing.

Respondents talked about the importance of integrating tactile input during shared reading sessions. Some tactile strategies related to materials and activities, including the use of tactile tangible symbols in shared reading, objects paired with stories, books with embedded textures, drawing in the sand, writing with tactile symbols, and reading braille. Tactile strategies related to instructional support included coactive exploration of materials, following tactile representations in books, using hand-under-hand approach for exploring tactile features of books and when tracking braille, learner retelling of story by using tactile vocabulary (such as tangible symbols), and the need to fade tactile supports (such as textures and objects) over time. Some respondents mentioned the importance of using tactile signs or sign language during literacy instruction. One teacher described how she used tactile symbols to reinforce vocabulary that appeared in multiple classroom activities, again indicative of the importance of repetition and practice.

We use a lot of the same tactile symbols in the books that we use, you know, throughout the day. The books are all around the classroom theme, so it’s all just kind of reinforcing that vocabulary, so that they are seeing it. You know, in their literacy activities as well as other activities throughout the day. Just kind of building their understanding of tactile symbols, so that they can sign for the concept that we are talking about.

Comprehension strategies

Most participants offered strategies to support comprehension. Several respondents mentioned the importance of highlighting important ideas to the learner. Pictures and elaboration on pictures within text supported comprehension. Learners were asked to sequence the retelling of the story to demonstrate their comprehension of story events. While simplification of text may initially be necessary, expansion of the complexity of a specific text occurred over time. Frequent comprehension checks were viewed as important, both during and after sharing text.

Comprehension checks included posing questions and requiring the learner to paraphrase text.

Additionally, repetition was emphasized as being critical to building comprehension of a specific text and was tied to having a routine way of reading a specific book.

Connecting communication forms with literacy

Teachers, interveners, and parents often discussed the need to augment text with multiple forms/modes of communication. This included the use of objects, pictures, line drawings (including Boardmaker), signs, sign language, braille, and technology, including the use of switches and speech-generating devices. The pairing of concrete representations (objects, pictures, and simple iconic drawings) with text may be helpful to early communicators (Pittroff, 2011). The simultaneous use of multiple communication forms was also mentioned, such as large print paired with auditory input, line drawings paired with tactile tangible symbols, and co-drawing about text combined with photographs or PowerPoint. One parent mentioned labeling objects in English and Spanish and pairing them with writing activities, while another parent made a connection between the use of multiple communication forms with allowing for input across multiple senses.

Discussion

Deafblindness causes unique challenges around gaining and maintaining attention. Learners who are deafblind access information in a parts-to-whole approach because of partial visual and auditory information, and the nature of learning through touch (Bruce, 2005a, 2005b). Learners can become distracted because they are struggling to use their functional vision and hearing to access information within the literacy lesson, or to make sense of the parts. In addition, individuals who are deafblind may share attention with others without making eye contact. Peltokorpi and Huttunen (2008) asserted that eye contact is only one measure of shared attention. They suggested that adults also observe for body orientation, touching and other motor acts, and vocalizations as additional ways that learners who are deafblind share attention with others. In this study, adults reported the use of attentional strategies that were visual, auditory, and tactual. They also spoke of the importance of physical proximity and the role of rhythm and music in maintaining learner attention. Similarly, Villas Boas et al. (2016) found that touch, music, and rhythm supported attention. Hartmann (2016) asserted the importance of identifying the learner’s preferences and interests. In this study, adults understood the importance of selecting texts on topics of interest, as well as the need to attend to the learner’s interest during the shared reading. They capitalized on the learner’s interests through extension activities as well, such as drawing or singing. The adults highlighted important elements of the shared reading, as an engagement strategy. In addition, the adults used comprehension strategies, including prediction, because they saw a connection between the learner’s comprehension and continued engagement in the shared story reading.

In this study, participants discussed elements of the child-guided approach as well as multiple practices associated with systematic instruction. A review by Ferrell et al. (2014) found that there is evidence of the benefit of both approaches when teaching communication and literacy skills to learners and youth who are deafblind. Consideration of the learner’s interests, establishment of trust, and coactive techniques (including co-drawing) are elements of the child-guided approach (Nelson & Bruce, 2019) that were mentioned by study participants. Personalized literacy focuses on the learner’s experiences and includes literacy activities such as the daily schedule, interactive home-school journals, experience books, which were literacy lessons discussed by participants in this study (Bruce, Janssen, & Bashinski, 2016).

The systematic instructional approach is helpful to the acquisition of new knowledge and skills, including instruction of symbols. This approach includes the application of behavioral principles such as selection of individually appropriate instructional targets, shaping, fading, application of prompting systems and prompting types, and data-based decision-making (Westling et al., 2020). Systematic instruction has been especially effective in increasing the rate of intentional communication and the variety of communicative intents expressed by learners who are deafblind (Ferrell et al., 2014). In this study on shared reading, participants discussed the role of wait time, prompting (and the connection between these two principles), and reinforcement. In their study of wait time used with learners with visual impairments and deafblindness, Johnson and Parker (2013) found the learners required at least 5 s wait time to cognitively process information before responding and that increased wait time was important to reducing prompting.

Vocabulary knowledge is critical to comprehending text (National Reading Panel, 2000). Pullen and Cash (2017) suggested direct instruction of vocabulary during shared reading. Furthermore, they suggested that repeated reading of the text and discussion of words are helpful to vocabulary acquisition. In this study, adults often selected key vocabulary to highlight during shared reading. Participants discussed the need to use multiple communication forms, including speech, signing, and writing to support mastery of vocabulary. The interactive nature of shared story reading extends beyond taking turns to read to include extension activities, such as writing, that support learning new vocabulary. This quote suggests that this interactive quality of shared reading is important to vocabulary development.

A strong and consistent finding related to storybook reading is that shared reading activities that are interactive in nature (i.e., opportunities for participants to respond to questions and receive feedback), have been more highly associated with positive learner outcomes in vocabulary than non-interactive reading. (Marshall et al., 2017, p. 857)

Drawing and writing were discussed as extension activities during shared reading sessions at school and home. For some learners this involved writing vocabulary, while for others it involved drawing an entire text. Writing also involved representations beyond print or braille symbols, to include writing with pictures and objects. Co-construction of written text was also emphasized by participants, including the co-construction of experience books that were part of shared reading. When someone shares a lived experience with an individual who is deafblind, they can observe affective and bodily responses. They can ask, what excites the person? What upsets the person? What is most important about this experience from the other person’s point of view? These experiences leave bodily and emotional traces that support memory and can be expressed in later shared drawing and writing experiences (Heijnen & van Rooij, 2008). Thus, it is the co-construction of text by two individuals that shared the same experience that is so powerful when working with learners who are deafblind.

The importance of touch to learning and the use of tactile representations were discussed by participants. Touch was reported to be helpful to sharing and maintaining attention. Touch was also integral to the co-construction and sharing of literacy materials. Multiple participants mentioned the use of tactile representations, with some being tangible symbols that were objects. Tangible symbols is a term coined by Rowland and Schweigert (2000) and refers to representations that share some sort of visual, auditory, or tactual feature with what they represent, which is the referent. So, they are iconic tactile representations. Iconic tactile representations are an important bridge to symbols for many learners who are visually impaired or deafblind. This is because the relationship between a representation and a referent is more easily understood if it can be observed and observational learning is greatly reduced for learners who are deafblind. It is also critical to consider which type of representation the learner perceives and is able to draw meaning from (Hartmann, 2016). Furthermore, the coactive handling of objects, including object representations, may be important to building a relationship between the adult and learner, as suggested in a study by Tanner et al. (2021).

Very few participants mentioned the use of touch cues. Touch cues are receptive signals to the learner about something that is about to occur and are important to a gentle, non-invasive approach with learners who are deafblind (Shaw, 2005). For example, one might gently touch the learner’s hands to let them know they are available to communicate and then wait for the learner to offer their hands. Similarly, object cues involve giving a receptive experience with an object before expectations are placed on the learner (Bruce & Borders, 2015). The learner’s functional vision, hearing, and communication will impact the need for touch cues. Tactile practices, including the use of tangible symbols and touch cues, are an evidence-based practice in deafblindness (Ferrell et al., 2014).

In this study, participants used a variety of strategies to support comprehension, including simplifying text; highlighting key ideas while reading; and asking comprehension questions, including prediction questions, before and after the shared reading. They also used personalized texts which built upon the learner’s actual experiences. Pullen and Cash (2017) also suggested questioning and building on experiences as comprehension strategies. Hanreddy (2015) linked vocabulary to comprehension and suggested pairing text with concrete communication forms, such as pictorial representations to enhance comprehension, a strategy also used by participants in this study. While posing questions is a common form of comprehension check, the complexity of the questions should be gradually increased to match the learner’s growing language skills (Dennis et al., 2021).

Communication and literacy are inextricably linked for learners who are deafblind. Participants in this study often talked about the multiple forms/modes of communication required to support literacy. These multiple forms/modes were used for attentional purposes and to enhance meaning-making. Villas Boas et al. (2016) spoke to the importance of adults and learners sharing communication modalities, and the role of the modalities in attention. The communication form/mode required by each learner who is deafblind will depend on the individual characteristics of that learner, including their functional use of vision, hearing, and touch. A learning media assessment will support teams to determine the learners’ primary, secondary, and tertiary forms for learning. The team, including the parents, must determine the combination of expressive and receptive forms needed by each individual to learn (Majors, 2011).

Limitations

There were three limitations for this investigation. First, this study relied on survey and interview data, both being measures of self-report. Although this study included 84 survey participants and intended to interview participants from each group (parents, teachers, and interveners), the delay between the deployment of the survey and the interviews limited those agreeing to be interviewed to seven parents and three teachers. Having the opportunity to interview interveners and more teachers would have strengthened the results by balancing and diversifying the responses across participants groups. In addition, the online survey did not allow participants to select multiple communication forms, although many listed them under the option of “other.” Thus, the importance of multiple communication forms in shared reading may be under-emphasized in this article. Finally, there was no way to match respondents to the individual who is deafblind, making it impossible to deduce if a teacher participant and a parent participant were describing the same individual.

Implications

This research study informed our understanding about the multimodal instructional strategies used in shared story reading at home and in school. The main implications for practice are that teams must highly individualize their approaches to instruction, including the identification of attentional and communication strategies that work best for learners who are deafblind. Team members must be familiar with both child-guided and systematic instructional principles and their roles in shared story reading. With such limited research on literacy for learners who are deafblind, future investigations should include interventions measuring the effectiveness of the strategies identified in this article. Additional exploratory research on the literacy practices being used with this population will help influence future intervention studies and continue to grow the research base in this area.

Conclusion

This study draws attention to the unique strategies used during shared reading for learners who are deafblind that emerged from the experiences of parents, teachers, and interveners. There are complex considerations around accessibility, attention, and the need to combine communication forms to support meaning-making. Consistent shared reading routines and repetition of text experiences support meaning-making. Principles and practices associated with both the child-guided approach (such as following the learner’s interest in the moment) and systematic instructional approach (such as careful selection of prompts and reinforcement) are important to shared reading lessons with learners who are deafblind. Since most of these learners have some functional vision and/or hearing, teams must consider visual, auditory, and tactual strategies required by each learner. Touch plays a unique role in literacy instruction for learners who are deafblind, in communication and in co-construction and sharing of reading materials. Shared story reading occurs across the home and school environments, offering team members’ opportunities to share experiences that ground literacy lessons, as well as reading materials. Collaborative efforts between home and school that support shared reading can create a strong foundation for a comprehensive literacy program for learners who are deafblind across environments.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Christopher Brum

Susan M Bruce

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