@ Emily, sorry for the delay in response! There are several practitioners and researchers who are interested in joint attention that is created through touch. Some ways to create joint attention in a tactile sense are similar in to the ways that you build it in the visual sense. It is helpful to be engaged in something that the child finds really rewarding or delightful. For people who have researched the importance of hands for children with visual impairments or deafblindness, there is an emphasis on how touch is nurtured respectfully and through ongoing supportive relationships with caregivers as the child needs more time to explore the world with hands rather than through vision alone. Here is a video that I like a great deal that is audio described but shows a young deafblind man exploring a piece of sculpture with an SSP. I think this does more to explain it than I can- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ys--nYjRQUA Secondly I would encourage anyone that is interested to explore this website: http://projectsalute.net/ Gloria, a charter member in this virtual community helped create this website!
Amy Parker - 10/7/2014
