Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired
Outreach Programs
www.tsbvi.edu | 512-454-8631| 1100 W. 45th St. | Austin, TX 78756
2015 Texas Symposium on Deafblindness
Saturday 10:30 AM-12:00 PM
Bodily Emotional Traces
Presented by
Bernadette Van Den Tillaart, Deafblind Consultant
bernadettevandentillaart@outlook.com
and
Gunnar Vege, Senior Advisor,
Signo School and Resource Center in Norway
gunnar.vege@signo.no
Developed for
Texas School for the Blind & Visually Impaired
Texas Deafblind Outreach
“Bodily Emotional Traces”
Gunnar Vege and Bernadette Van Den Tillaart
Communication beyond the here-and-now…
an insurmountable barriere…..??
Suddenly one day….
“Ingerid and the apple!”
From “Deafblind special”…
…to recognition of what is typical!
VIDEO:
“Johanne and the candle!”
BODILY EMOTIONAL TRACES
The connection between
What we perceive through our bodies and emotions
What we keep in our memories
And what we become able to express
Video:
A couple of video-sequences with illustrations of BETs.
 Christopher in the gym
 Ingerid and the crab
MEMORY TRACES
From Meaningful
To
Significant….
To be an exciting partner makes somebody wants to follow you





Intention and authenticity
Perspective
Attention
Tension
Narrative
2015 Texas Symposium on Deafblindness – Bodily Emotional Traces – Van Den Tillaart, B & Vege, G.
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To expand communication
We need something to talk/communicate about
Shared moments that become shared life stories
NARRATIVES!
Meaning and coherence
The function of the narrative is to give access to experience of meaning and coherence in the
experienced here-and-now.
The alternative is fragments and meaninglessness….
Narrative structure of a shared experience
Creating and sharing emotions - such as excitement, tension, anticipation, (mis)understanding
and connection - enhance the narrative structure of an experience.
Figure 1 (Interaction Model - van den Tillaart, 1998; 2001) Graph depicting a wave shape representing "Shared Affective
Involvement" during the course of an activity. This wave form begins at zero with the "contact opening" phase, rises gradually to
its highest peak during the “contact-maintenance” phase, and drops to zero rapidly during the “contact closing” phase of the
activity.
(Interaction Model - van den Tillaart, 1998; 2001)
NARRATIVE l
“In a well-functioning shared event their contributions are organized in a narrative structure,
which is a cognitive and affective structure. These structures help the interacting partners to
organize the different small perceived elements that constitute a shared event, so they can be
recalled and described in an organized way. This is naturally happening in the playful interaction
between parents and infants.
Developing partner competence
This tells us how important it is to develop this partner style, making what is an intuitive action
from a parent/caregiver when communicating with their child, into conscious communication
skills when communicating with persons who are congenitally deafblind.”
(Vege, 2009)
2015 Texas Symposium on Deafblindness – Bodily Emotional Traces – Van Den Tillaart, B & Vege, G.
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NARRATIVE ll
“Human talents for narrative can flourish in the complete absence of words”
(Trevarthen,1999)
People can use their facial expressions, their arms and hands, their whole bodies and their
vocal sounds to act out and to convey messages.
(Trevarthen, 1999)
To create/build coherent knowledge about the world
Coherent knowledge about the world, based on tactile perception, is of great importance for a
healthy development of persons with congenital deafblindness.
The narrative structure gives access to coherent knowledge about the world.
Attention….“Two attentions!!!”
Well-functioning coordination of these separate attentions towards the world is what can lead to
achievement of reference; to be able to talk about what has been a common world.
(Lock, 1999)
Emotions and attention l
Exaggerated facial expressions and the captivating of the infant’s attention by exaggerating the
temporal characteristics of «conversation» are prime aspects of the flowering of intuitive
parenting.
(Lock, 1999)
Emotions and attention ll
A person’s feelings, as expressed through bodily manifestations, such as facial expressions,
bodily gestures, and emotionally toned vocalizations, have the power to affect an infant, as well
as an older child, as well as an adult. This is a fact of human psychology.
(Hobson, 2005)
Emotions and attention lll
In our work we have to take seriously that emotions are the most important topic in what we are
doing. They are what gives direction to the attention and what promote memory and learning.
(Trevarthen cited in Horgen, 2007)
Tension l


An “attention captivating style”, by using facial expressions, bodily gestures, and
emotionally toned vocalizations in a sequent-ial building up of emotions: the
characterization of a narrative structure.
Novelty; as introducing something new and surprising.
2015 Texas Symposium on Deafblindness – Bodily Emotional Traces – Van Den Tillaart, B & Vege, G.
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Narrativ struktur ll
Figure 2 A series of pictures of Gunnar and a student arc over a timeline. Below each picture is a time during a video sequence:
left to right 00:01, 00:02, 00:04, 00:07 and 00:16. Near the final picture (00:16) there is a smaller yellow arc overlaying the larger
arc; the first half of the line is solid and the second half is dashed lines. Underneath the pictures and the two arcs is a time line
running from 00:00 to 00:17.
Tension ll


When caregivers are creating challenges, they are at the same time challenging the
agency of a person.
Putting in moments of tension, which often is part of a narrative sequence, stimulates
thinking and hence agency.
(Souriau, 2008)
What is needed for creation of BETs?
A roller coaster
or
A washing machine….???
Developing a shared culture
It is necessary for persons who are congenitally deafblind and their close partners together to
develop a joint culture based on daily life events, as it is for children in general.
The existence of such shared system between a sub-cultural group (parent-child dyad) is what
makes possible, most of the time, to understand each other when they converse.
(Nelson, 1996)
2015 Texas Symposium on Deafblindness – Bodily Emotional Traces – Van Den Tillaart, B & Vege, G.
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The conversation
Facilitating possibilities for an expanded conversation:
The prerequisite is the shared experience
The scaffolding conversation partner
Recognition of Bodily Emotionally Traces
Use of the impressions which are naturally perceived from a tactual bodily perspective,
“Whom’s story are we telling?”
Framework
The dialogical perspective
Dialogism is a framework, a fundamental attitude to psychological and social issues, which is
about a human being getting his identity, becoming a human being with values and thoughts
through staying in contact with other human beings
(Rommetveit, 1999)
Notes:
2015 Texas Symposium on Deafblindness – Bodily Emotional Traces – Van Den Tillaart, B & Vege, G.
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Texas School for the Blind & Visually Impaired
Outreach Programs
Figure 3 TSBVI logo.
Figure 4 IDEAs that Work logo and OSEP disclaimer.
2015 Texas Symposium on Deafblindness – Bodily Emotional Traces – Van Den Tillaart, B & Vege, G.
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