Other children who are deafblind may have enough vision to be able to read large print, recognize familiar people, see sign language and move around in their environment. It has been estimated that 40,000 people in the United States are deafblind. Of that number, 10-11,000 are children. While not all people who are deafblind are born that way, estimates indicate that deafblindness occurs in three of 100,000 births. There are many causes of deafblindness.
Maternal rubella causes loss of hearing, loss of sight, and sometimes heart defects as well.
One in 20,000 people are born with it. The first symptom of Usher's Syndrome to be diagnosed is usually a problem with hearing. Night blindness can be diagnosed early, but most symptoms of vision loss are not noticed until late childhood or adolescence. Down's Syndrome can cause deafblindness, as can fetal alcohol syndrome, hydrocephaly, maternal drug abuse, premature birth, AIDS, herpes, syphilis and toxoplasmosis. How deafblindness affects a child's development depends on several critical factors, according to the Arizona Deafblind Project.