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So we're going to talk about what difference specialist support has made to my daughter.
It's made all the difference in the world because generic support services would not
understand the impact of deafblindness. It has to be people who are specifically trained
in issues to do with deafblindness, and somebody put it very well actually in saying that the
overall impact of deafblindness is not deafness plus blindness but deafness times blindness,
so the issues that are pertinent to that can only be understood by a specialist in that
particular area. iin relation to my daughter, it's made a difference in ensuring that she
has specific educational provision that meets her needs. Without that input she would not
have got that, and it continues to be so that we have a multi-sensory impairment teacher
from Sense, who ensures she's been to my daughter's new school, providing training to the staff
members there, so that they understand what impacts on my daughter, what makes her learning
difficult, what can make it easier for her, what breaks she needs to have, and what additional
support services there needs to be. So yes I would say that specialist provision is very,
very important, otherwise the child's needs are not met.