Teacher Profiles

Published March 2021

Linda Bernett’s journey to understanding deaf-blindness began when a retiring colleague asked her to take over work with a student who was deaf-blind. Now, ten years later, Linda is still working with that student, helping him prepare to graduate and transition to adult life.

To learn all she could about deaf-blindness, Linda reached out for guidance, training, and support from many organizations, especially California Deafblind Services (CDBS), which provided a number of instructional and collaborative consultations. She also attended workshops on deaf-blindness and accessed resources and strategies on the CDBS website and NCDB’s Open Hands, Open Access: Deaf-Blind Intervener Learning Modules.

In her current role as an itinerant teacher of students who are Deaf and hard of hearing with the Los Angeles Unified School District, Linda is working with preschoolers with deaf-blindness. “It’s teaching me a lot about the crucial nature of early intervention,” she explains. “What non-disabled children learn incidentally from the moment they are born, we must create for our kids with deaf-blindness.”

“The world can be a scary place for children with deaf-blindness, and it is our job to make them feel safe so they are relieved of anxiety and open to learning,” Linda says. She advises teachers to be patient, move at the child's pace, and collaborate with other team members to give students structure, consistency, and repetition. She adds, “Kids with deaf-blindness are happier when they are engaged in activities, part of a community, and respected as valued members of society.”

Published January 2021

Julia Bowman is a teacher of the visually impaired with an early intervention credential. She first became interested in working with children with deafblindness when she was part of a parent group for caregivers of babies with visual impairments. One of the infants in the group was deafblind, and Julia and the baby’s mom became fast friends. Today she works for the Illinois School for the Visually Impaired as a birth to three educator, developmental therapist for vision, and teacher.

Julia’s training in deafblind education involved completing NCDB’s Open Hands, Open Access: Deaf-Blind Intervener Learning Modules, as well as online courses on using active learning techniques. She is currently working with a one-year-old who has hearing loss and visual impairment. Because the child’s vision issues resemble cortical visual impairment (CVI), Julia decided to use visual support strategies and active learning to encourage the child’s curiosity and interest in reaching for objects—for example, by using stay-put learning environments, and color to highlight particular objects. Julia says the child has responded very well to these strategies and that “she now explores objects independently and is becoming mobile.”

Julia emphasizes collaboration when working with a child who is deaf-blind. Her advice for new teachers is to focus on teamwork and “talk to your colleagues!” For example, she always connects with the hearing specialist on the educational team and tries to co-treat as often as possible. Likewise, she consults with her colleagues at Project Reach: Illinois Deafblind Services whenever she has a student with deafblindness on her caseload.

Educational strategies for students with deafblindness benefit students with many different disabilities. I wish that more special education teachers were aware of them.

Published February 2021

Sara Edwards witnessed first-hand the impact early intervention can have on a child with a sensory impairment by seeing how much a developmental therapist for vision (DT/V) supported her own children’s learning. Both were born visually impaired. The DT/V’s work inspired Sara to become a teacher of the visually impaired, a DT/V, and work in early intervention. Today, she is an educator at Illinois School for the Visually Impaired, where her caseload includes children with differing levels of vision loss, some with additional disabilities, including students who are deaf-blind.

“After working with my first child who was deaf-blind,” says Sara, “I quickly realized the lack of information and training I had, and I lacked resources to share with the families. I really had to do my research.” Sara explains that most of what she now knows about deaf-blindness has come from hands-on classroom experience, the Open Hands, Open Access: Deaf-Blind Intervener Learning Modules, and from multiple training programs and conferences. She also frequently connects with colleagues at Project Reach, the Illinois state deaf-blind project, for resources and information.

Sara currently works with two students who are deaf-blind, often co-treating with a developmental therapist for hearing in early intervention. “I enjoy incorporating activities that promote the use of all functioning senses so that they can learn, play, and explore their environments independently,” she says.

Published January 2021

One of the things Morgan Hendon loves most about her job is that “students push me each week to become creative in planning lessons to meet their needs.” As a teacher for students with visual impairments and a certified orientation and mobility specialist, Morgan currently works with three students who have deaf-blindness at Park School in Evanston, a therapeutic public day school. Each student has different communication, sensory, and accommodation/modification needs. 

Morgan has received training and support from her state’s deaf-blind project (Project Reach) and takes classes from the University of South Dakota on deaf-blindness. Likewise, while at Park School, she learned basic sign language, a skill she strongly advises for teachers who work with students who are deaf-blind. Morgan also recommends that teachers lean on their colleagues for support. “It’s imperative for us to be flexible and help each other recognize what is working and what isn't,” she explains. “It's okay for things not to go as planned as this is what pushes us as teachers!”

She says she is “continually amazed at how smart and hard working my students with deaf-blindness are and how dedicated their parents are to ensuring they reach their education and life goals.” She hopes in the future there will be greater awareness of the many educational services and supports available to this important population of students.

Published February 2021

After receiving certification as a Teacher of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (TODHH), Rebecca Peary was often placed in classrooms with DHH students who had additional needs, such as vision loss. “I love working with these unique students,” she says, “and the challenges and successes they present.”

To learn more about deaf-blindness, Rebecca has engaged in self-study and attended professional development courses, including some offered by Project Reach: Illinois Deafblind Services. She also emphasizes the importance of on-the-job and hands-on personal experiences with students and their families.

As a DHH teacher at Hinsdale South High School, Rebecca currently teaches three students who are deaf and have significant vision needs. They all use sign language as their main mode of communication along with picture supports. “Because their communication needs are greatly visual,” she explains, “it is imperative that their communication partners sign within each student’s ‘box of vision,’ and use simple, enlarged pictures. It’s also important that they practice patience.”

Rebecca says that over the years, she has seen excellent gains in accessibility for DHH students and students with deaf-blindness, but there are still challenges and lots of room for improvement. In particular, she hopes that accessibility will become natural in all environments, both inside and outside of the classroom.

Published February 2021

Pam Young had been working with children with disabilities at Nevada Early Intervention Services (NEIS) when she attended the 2009 Western Regional Early Intervention Conference. That, she says, was the beginning of true love. “I found my home with children who have sensory disabilities, including deaf-blindness, and have never looked back.”

She took advantage of a host of training opportunities to learn more about deaf-blindness, including a course on understanding deaf-blindness from the SKI-HI Institute through the Nevada deaf-blind project and training as a parent coach for children who are deaf/ hard-of-hearing. She received a teacher of the visually impaired endorsement from Portland State University and a CVI endorsement from Perkins School for the Blind.

Pam is now a developmental specialist and teacher of students with visual impairments at NEIS. She currently has two students with deaf-blindness: a medically-fragile child who has limited motion and use of the hands and another who has multiple challenging disabilities but is more mobile. The first responds well to soft voices and likes being held while the second is highly verbal and a bit headstrong. Not surprisingly, Pam works hard to make modifications in the learning environment to take advantage of each child’s unique challenges and abilities.

“I think the biggest thing I have learned about working with children who are deaf-blind is to see them as children first,” she explains. “Just like all children, they learn best through play.” One of her favorite things to do is to make or adapt toys, such as PVC pipe toy hangers, that allow a child to play independently.

Published May 2021

As a mother of a child with hearing loss, Iryna Shkarbanov says her personal experience helps her better understand the unique educational, social, and emotional needs of her students with deaf-blindness. “It makes me an even greater advocate for my students and their success at school,” she says.

Iryna is a special education teacher at North Ridge Elementary in Wake County, working with students with dual sensory impairments in both general and special education settings. Most students have significant support needs and communicate using a variety of methods, including tactile sign language, objects, spoken language, pictures, and 3D symbols.

She enjoys the creative aspects of the job, such as modifying and adapting materials for lesson plans, individual schedules, and activities so they fit each student's academic needs. “My favorite part of the job is finding ways to engage students in activities and learning and helping them connect with their peers and teachers throughout the school day,” she explains. 

Iryna received a degree in Adapted Curriculum Teaching from William Peace University and is working on a master’s in Special Education with a concentration in Deaf/Hard of Hearing (DHH) Education from Minot State University. Over the years, she has attended numerous webinars and training programs on deaf-blindness. She’s also completed 56 hours of practicum training in applying the principles of listening and spoken language therapy from the Children's Cochlear Implant Center at the University of North Carolina.

Iryna says that her students' biggest challenge is building relationships with their teachers and peers. “My team and I put a lot of effort into building a trusting relationship with students before introducing new concepts or changes in their school environment,” she explains.

Published February 2021

As a Child of Deaf Adults, Sharon Jones understood deafness on a deeply personal level. While working as an educational interpreter, a student with deaf-blindness was added to her caseload, and she knew right away that she needed to learn more about deaf-blindness. “For me,” she says, “deafness is a very navigable sensory loss, but combining both losses was not in my comfort zone at all!” 

Through the South Dakota State Deaf-Blind Project, Sharon started her training by taking NCDB’s Open Hands, Open Access Deaf-Blind Intervener Learning Modules and attending conferences related to deaf-blindness. The training helped her work more effectively with her student.

Now, Sharon is a teacher of students who are Deaf (TOD) and works as an outreach consultant for the South Dakota School for the Deaf. She continues adding to her knowledge through independent reading on subjects such as language development in children with deaf-blindness. 

Sharon is currently working with her first infant who is deaf-blind. She says her training has been a huge asset, particularly in her early intervention work with the family. She explains, “His mother is fantastic! She is learning to use touch and object cues and, because we don’t yet know his hearing status, I’ve encouraged her to talk to him all the time.”

Sharon believes that many TODs and teachers of students with visual impairments have a gap in knowledge about deaf-blindness. “Each group focuses more on the students who are typical in their field,” she says, “but students with deaf-blindness need to be explicitly taught in a much different way than if they had hearing or vision loss alone.”

Published April 2021

Crystal Sapir’s first experience with DeafBlindness happened when she was teaching at a school for children with autism that had a day program for DeafBlind adults. This inspired her to learn sign language, a skill she later put to use in a public school, where she had students with DeafBlindness in her own classroom. 

Working closely with a DeafBlind specialist and a teacher of the visually impaired (TVI), she learned how to use calendar systems, build routines, make experience books, and modify the curriculum to meet individual student needs. Crystal says she was lucky to be mentored by these experts when she first began working with students with DeafBlindness. “I gained so much from their knowledge and experience. Having them in my classroom hands-on really helped me integrate tools and materials to help build communication with my students. I would have not known any of these skills had they not invested so much time in me and the students!”

Crystal credits the DeafBlind specialist and TVI for encouraging her to pursue higher education. She has completed the Visual Impairment Program and Deafblind Graduate Certificate program at Texas Tech University and taken advantage of training opportunities from a number of other agencies. She is also a certified teacher of students who are Deaf and hard of hearing, an early intervention specialist, and is currently enrolled in the Teacher of Students who are Deafblind Pilot Program through the Texas Deafblind Project.

In her current position as a teacher of students who are Deaf and hard of hearing and DeafBlind for the Dallas Independent School District, Crystal has several students with DeafBlindness who are in the developmental stages of learning language. She says she especially enjoys watching their shared communication when they begin to understand each other.

In the future, Crystal hopes districts will hire qualified interveners and provide training for them as well as classroom teachers in DeafBlindness. “Students deserve proficient language models when acquiring language,” she says.