Saturday, November 7, 2026

3:45 PM - 4:00 PM

Ballroom 1 and 2

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Overview

Dr Sue Silveira

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Details

Deafblindness is a unique and complex disability which impacts all aspects of daily life, in particular communication, orientation and mobility, and access to information. Recent work to develop International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health Core Sets for deafblindness highlighted mobility as a key challenge. A project sponsored by a 2025 Round 1 National Disability Research Partnership grant provided funding for three researchers and four co-researchers representing peer led deafblind advocacy groups, to co-design a process to determine research priorities around mobility safety with people with deafblindness. The outcome was an urgent need to address the research priority question – what do orientation and mobility specialists need to know to work with deafblind people? Once addressed, the benefits could include development of a training curriculum co-designed and delivered by people with deafblindness, that supports orientation and mobility specialists to ensure better outcomes for people with deafblindness. This presentation will explore the “lessons learned” when working with people with lived experience of complex disability, including the benefits of co-researching and co-designing. The need for eye health professionals to be aware of the challenges faced by people with deafblindness will be highlighted. The benefits of ensuring inclusion of people with lived experience of disability in every step of design and implementation will be discussed.

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Speaker