First graduates of master’s in Communication and Deafblindness at Groningen University
09 Nov 2007
The first students of a programme in orthopedagogy with a specialization in communication and congenital deafblindness have graduated at the University of Groningen in the north of the Netherlands. It is the only study programme of its kind in the world.
The course’s founder is Marleen Jansen, a university lecturer who previously taught at the only school in the Netherlands for deafblind children.
Jansen explains that there are a few hundred people in the Netherlands who are deafblind, and about 100 of those were born deafblind. Tragically, she goes on, new cases are discovered all the time among people who had previously been considered mentally impaired.
The study programme has an international orientation: the latest group of students to enrol come from Belgium, Germany and Norway.
Deafblindness first came to public awareness in the first half of the 20th century, when deafblind American writer Helen Keller wrote a book on her personal emancipation, and then went on to become an active campaigner against discrimination of the disabled and other deprived groups.
It is thanks to her that deafblindness is no longer regarded as a condition that is impossible to overcome. The fact that communication with and by deafblind people is now an academic programme of study is in itself a major accomplishment.