How persons with deafblindness experience art and music through touch – new honorary doctor
Døvblindhed
10 jun 2024
How do you experience art and music when one or two senses are lost? For individuals with deafblindness, their experience relies on the remaining senses and touch. After 30 years of research Russ Palmer has been given an honorary doctorate at the University of Oulu for his lifelong achievement in the development of social-haptic communication.
On 18 May Russ Palmer became Dr. Palmer, Ph.D. h.c. at the University of Oulu, presumably making him the first person with deafblindness to be given an honorary doctorate in the Nordic region.
– This honorary title is given on Russ’ own achievements. The way you have been traveling around the world, giving of yourself, and sharing your knowledge, is your badge of honour! You have made your deafblindness into your superpower, said Dr. Marjatta Takala, professor of special education, who promoted Russ to the honorary doctorate.
Music therapist with deafblindness
If life was a card game, one might say Russ was not dealt the best hand from the beginning. But he looked at the cards dealt, and went all in.
Russ Palmer was born severely deaf and had his first hearing aid at the age of four. His vision started to deteriorate at the age of 13. In 1991 he was registered as blind. As time went, so did his residual hearing, resulting in cochlear implants in 2004 and 2011. Russ often talks about his life in the terms of Before CI (BCI) and After CI (ACI), due to his enormous interest in music.
Two years after finishing his education at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, he became an international music therapist. And from the early 1990s he started to develop social-haptic communication in collaboration with his wife Dr. Riitta Lahtinen.
Being treated as an equal
What has made the strongest impression during this celebration?
– For me it was meeting the other honorary doctors, and them treating me as an equal. I didn’t expect that, and it gave me such a wonderful feeling. Also being contacted by the president of Iceland left a mark on me, says Russ Palmer.
Through his work and contributions both within music therapy and social-haptic communication, Dr. Palmer has become a household name within the deafblind society.
– It was never my purpose. What I wanted was to give back to the community. It has been a long road, and it has taken a long time to be recognized.
Feeling musical vibrations
In his research he has studied how persons with deafblindness interpret art and he has shown that his participants found new ways to express their experiences, showing that sensory impressions can be transferred across modalities. A large part of his work has been in how vibroacoustic technologies enable people with hearing impairments to feel musical vibrations. Understanding how tones are physically experienced can enhance art and music appreciation for those with dual impairments. This is referred to as a vibrosensoric experience.
– To be recognised by your peers is just overwhelming. And to know that you can influence the path other researchers take and that I bring changes to people’s lives, it cannot be expressed in words. Living with a disability means that you must be very conscious, both on your own needs, as well as being able to make the right demands so your quality of life is as good as possible, says Dr. Russ Palmer.
