Watch: How vision and hearing-impaired people communicate with each other
It may seem tricky but there are many ways of doing it. And technology has helped.
Tommy Edison has been vision-impaired since birth but that does not stop him from doing what he likes – communicating through videos as a YouTuber.
He uses humour to answer questions on how he lives with his disability. His opening line is, “In this video, we give you two disabilities for the price of one.” He explains how he relies on his other senses. He also critiques films and tries different experiments in public.
According to Edison, the one question he is often asked is this: how does a vision-impaired person communicate with a hearing-impaired person?
He is joined by hearing-impaired YouTuber Rikki Poynter and the two act out the various ways in which they can communicate with each other – such as lip reading, with the help of an interpreter and through tactile signing, which is a kind of sign language based on touch. They also talk about their favourite communication apps.