Introduction: People with congenital deafblindness (CDB) face challenges orienting themselves in time and activities. The aim of the current study is to identify and analyze how an adult with CDB and his support persons co-construct comprehensibility and predictability in his daily life.
Method: The study consists of video recordings of everyday dyadic interaction from a residential home. Conversation Analysis was used to explore interactional practices that afford orientation in time and activities.
Results: Results highlight several important practices: 1) repetitions of signs or other recognizable linguistic elements in a second turn to identify and confirm a reciprocally understood subject; 2) repetition of a sign placed first in the second part of a question-answer adjacency pair; 3) and the use of a visually based schedule to achieve mutual understanding.
Conclusion: The practices identified and analyzed accomplish security, predictability, and comprehensibility for the person with CDB and his support persons.