ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on sensory and physical difficulties and the educational needs that may result. It discusses the issues related to hearing impairments and approaches to support the language and communication of hearing-impaired young people and move on to the area of visual impairment: what this means for young people and ways to support visually impaired students in educational institutions. Total communication is based on the principle that deaf children can learn to communicate effectively by using any and all means that they can in whatever combination works best: sign, speech and hearing, finger-spelling, gesture, facial expression, lip-reading, and cued speech. Helen Keller is, perhaps, the best known deaf-blind child in history. The National Deaf Children's Society offers useful advice to teachers and families of children with hearing impairments. Multi-sensory impairment means difficulty with both vision and hearing. Multi-sensory teaching is simultaneous use of visual, auditory, and kinaesthetic-tactile senses to enhance memory and learning.
