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June 27 is celebrated all over the world. International Day of the Deaf. The day was chosen in honor of Helen Keller, the writer and social activist, born on June 27, 1880.

She was the first deafblind person to earn a bachelor's degree.

In 1991, the DbI – Deafblind International Associations – adopted the word deafblindness, replacing deaf-blind, to reinforce the unique nature of deafblindness, arguing that it is a single disability and not the sum of deafness and blindness.

Deafblindness is a unique disability that presents hearing and visual loss simultaneously, to different degrees. The deafblind person may not have total loss of both senses and may partially hear or see.

Four degrees of deaf-blindness are distinguishable:

- existence of auditory residue and visual residue

- total deafness and visual residue

- auditory residue and total blindness

- total deafness and blindness

There are several ways of communication. It is essential to make use of tactile objects or symbols, facial expressions or noises that express opinions, or feelings (for those who do not have total loss of hearing or vision), let the deaf person touch his face, lips, cheeks, jaws so that he can understand what we are saying.

Tactile Sign Language (LG Tactile) is a common means of communication and is a method used by deafblind people. It is based on a sign language or other manual communication system.

It is the most common method to ensure greater accessibility for deafblind people.

The António Aurélio da Costa Ferreira Educational Development Center is located in Lisbon and was the first in the country, dedicated to the education and rehabilitation of children, young people and deafblind adults, possessing the techniques in the field of rehabilitation, indispensable for the improvement of quality of life, in basic aspects of access to information, guidance and mobility, control of the environment and most importantly, communication.

More information: https://www.mapasocial.pt/pt/ced-antonio-aurelio-da-costa-ferreira/I6409