Project: Statistical Tool on Deafblindness
Partner: Deafblind Ontario Services
Principal Investigator: Sheri Adekola
Funder: Cultivate Fund
Students: Cara Harewood and Nicole Monette
Deafblindness is a combined loss of hearing and vision to such an extent that neither the hearing nor vision can be used as a means of accessing information to participate and be included in the community. To improve deafblind services, it is vital to first identify the current number of citizens with deafblindness and age-related dual sensory loss (DSL) in Canada.
Using publicly available government data such as censuses, the Canadian Survey on Disablity, and other data sources, Humber students, with the support of Professor Sheri Adekola, used Microsoft Excel to create a macro-enabled workbook application as a search tool and prevalence calculation for dual sensory loss. This Excel tool can be used to search and analyze statistics through several levels of government such as city, region, and census metropolitan area. It can also be used provincially to estimate prevalence of deafblindness by age groups and future population censuses.
“The research experience allowed our students to apply in-class learnings from their research analyst post-graduate certificate to solve a real-world problem.”
— Sheri Adekola, Professor, School of Liberal Arts & Sciences
With the preliminary work done, the tool will allow interested organizations to build awareness and rights-based advocacy campaigns needed to recognize deafblindness as a distinct disability and improve the quality of life of individuals with deafblindness. Using this tool, the project partner, DeafBlind Ontario Services, was able to generate an important resource paper titled, “Open Your Eyes and Ears – To Estimates of Canadian Individuals with Deafblindness and Age-Related Dual Sensory Loss.”
Through this applied research project, Humber students were provided the opportunity to further develop both their hard and soft skills. They gained valuable knowledge on deafblindness and have helped improve services for countless individuals.