Parents representing older individuals, babies, children with additional disabilities, children who used ASL, individuals from minority cultures, each brought up issues from their unique perspectives. Persuasive arguments were made in favor of a particular wording. The sharing was tremendous. The final document contains only a portion of all the ideas that were put forth by the group. It does serve, however, as a valuable guide to the issues families want addressed by professionals in the field of deafblindness, education and rehabilitation, and the community in general.
Parents always pull together, energizing each other to share their beliefs and concerns.
One thing I have come to realize is that we all come from many different backgrounds and have many unique challenges, even though all of our children have some type of deafblindness. We are not different from any parent all over this great nation and around the world. We need to step back and hear where families are coming from sometimes. We need to make sure they feel heard, then honor and respect their beliefs. What follows is the list of those practices developed by the parents in St. Louis.