A common belief is that people with deafblindness live in a completely silent and dark world and that they are often born with deafblindness.
The truth is most people with dual sensory impairments have a residual vision or hearing residue or both that they can utilize if provision is made for it.
People who have impaired vision will become dependent on hearing to receive and interpret sounds that can support visual impressions.
Likewise people who are hard of hearing will depend on the information and support they receive through sight.
When both the vision and hearing senses are impaired it means that the person cannot compensate by adopting another the other sense. One plus one equals three.
When the difficulties are so severe that hearing cannot compensate for vision loss and hearing loss cannot be compensated for with vision, the term deafblindness is used