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Guidelines Workshop
Alumni of the RuG master Communication and Deafblindness are invited to present a
workshop of 1hrs. This workshop consists of a 10 minutes presentation of 2-3 theoretical
concepts and a short introduction of a case of a person with deafblindness. The rest of the
time will be spend on video-analysis with the audience in which they apply the concepts on
the video involving communication with the person that was introduced. Videos need to have
a duration of 10-15 minutes (or multiple short videos) and need to show the person with
deafblindness and the social partner. For the selection of topics we advise you to use
concepts that you already have studied. The video-analysis will be supported by a member
of the working group.
If you are interested in presenting, we ask you to write an abstract. Below is an exemplary
abstract. Please fill in your own abstract by following this format and changing the text
between brackets <> into your own text.
Abstract for Conference ‘Communication in the context of congenital deafblindness:
ten years of studies. How knowledge and practice develop. November 15, 16, 17 2016.
University of Groningen.
Name of presenter:
<Saskia Damen>
Title:
<Intersubjectivy; Attunement and Meaning Making in Conversations between People with
Congenitally Deafblindness and their Social Partners>
Aim (formulate which concepts will be applied in video-analysis):
<The aim of this workshop is to apply the concept of Intersubjectivity in the analysis of videos
of conversations between people with congenital deafblindness and their social partners,
with specific focus on attunement and meaning making. >
Relevance (why are the concepts relevant for communication of individuals with CDB):
<Trevarthen states that human beings are born with ‘intersubjectivity’, the ability to share
subjective states. This ability can be observed and develops through meaningful social
interaction with social partners (Bråten & Trevarthen, 2007). Social partners use strategies to
mediate intersubjectivity, which can be clustered into two main partner strategies: attunement
and meaning making. Social Partners of individuals with CDB, such as parents, caregivers
and teachers, often have difficulty with the adaptation of attunement and meaning making
strategies in order to meet the needs of individuals with congenital deafblindness.>
Underlying project (state if this research is/was part of your master thesis/PhD
study/other):
<PhD study>
Project description (briefly describe your master thesis/PhD study/ other research):
<In our PhD study, an intervention program was developed, based on theories of the
development of intersubjectivity (Trevarthen, 1980; Stern, 1985) and the intervention model
Contact (Janssen et al, 2003) to enhance intersubjective communication between children
and adults with congenital deafblindness and their social partners. The program was
implemented for 12 participants with congenital deafblindness and 60 of their social partners
in two phases, with video-feedback coaching as the main intervention ingredient. Central
themes in the intervention were attunement and meaning making. The effect of the
intervention was tested on intersubjective behaviors at three layers of Intersubjective
development.>
Video (briefly describe context of the video you are planning to use in the workshop):
<We will show video-examples of a person with deafblindness in interaction with a social
partner, to illustrate intersubjective behaviors at three layers of intersubjective development
and the use of attunement and meaning making strategies by the partner.>
Best regards,
<your name here>