Our funder, the U.S. Department of Education, requires CDBS to conduct an annual child count to determine the number of children / students in California who are deafblind (i.e., children / students who are both blind/visually impaired and Deaf/hard of hearing). Our charge is to identify every child / student from birth to age 22 who is deafblind, regardless of their IEP category, as most students with deafblindness fall under a variety of other designations. This information is very important as it impacts policy and practice at local, state, and national levels. Thank you for your help.
LEAs (Local Education Agencies) and other places related to education (SELPAs, districts, county programs, early identification or medical programs) that have reported students with some degree of deafblindness in the past two years are mailed pre-printed forms showing the information that we have on file from reports from prior years. We ask for these forms to be reviewed and updated as needed.
Pre-printed forms to verify are mailed out to district, LEA, SELPA, State Special School, and county offices by Oct 30, 2025 and requested back by Dec 1st. All of the data that you provided on our state will be compiled here and the report is to be completed in Feb 2026. The report for California will be handed-off to our partners in the National Center on Deaf-Blindness (NCDB) to be combined with the other states for the US Department of Education.
If you did not receive a form and think you should have, please contact the census coordinator, Brian Devereux, at: devereux@sfsu.edu
If you have students that have NOT been previously reported, please use the forms on this page (BLANK 2025 FORM as PDF for your convenience) to share the information that you do have about this student.
So much thanks to our partners in the California Department of Education for their help getting the word out, to all of the early intervention programs for identifying so many new students in 2025, and to all of the school / medical / county / administration teams for helping collect, share, and verify so much data in our huge state! Because of you, we were able to identify 95 new students this past year for a total of 1077 youth and students between the ages of 0-21 throughout 48 of California's 58 counties!
We will continue to update our records throughout the year as any new information is shared, so please feel free to update if you have new information to share.
Many people who are deafblind have some usable vision and/or usable hearing. It is important to understand that persons who are completely deaf and totally blind, like Helen Keller was, make up only about six percent of the total group that is considered to be "deafblind." CDBS uses a functional definition of deafblindness:
If an individual (birth through age 21) has combined hearing and vision issues that are significant enough to require considerations (such as specialized adaptations, modifications, and strategies) when presenting information or interacting with the child, then that individual is considered eligible to receive CDBS services and should be included on the deafblind census.
For purposes of the annual census, a person is considered to be deafblind if they are both blind/visually impaired and Deaf/hard of hearing, ranging from mild to severe, or they function as if they have both a hearing and vision loss based on inconsistent responses to the environment or inconclusive responses during hearing and vision exams. A conclusion that a child is functionally deafblind may be based on an educational evaluation for purposes of initially reporting that child on the deafblind census. Please remember that regardless of the presence or absence of additional disabilities, children with combined hearing and vision issues should be included on the deafblind census. Students do not have to meet state or local criteria, since this census is separate from the state count, and most children in California with both hearing and vision issues are, in fact, identified on their individualized educational program (Part B of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act child count) in categories such as multi-disabled, intellectually disabled, visually impaired, or deafness.
In addition, students with a mild hearing loss and mild vision loss should be included since a combined mild loss of both senses can create an adverse effect on educational success.FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:
- When were the packets mailed? The pre-printed packets are mailed by the 1st week of February.
- When are forms due back? Please return the forms before March 15.
- How do I send back the new or revised forms or get answers to questions not answered here?
Please mail forms to: California Deafblind Services
ATTN: Census Coordinator
San Francisco State University
Dept. of Special Education — BH 163
1600 Holloway Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94132-4158 - OR Fax: 415-338-2845
Questions? (Or if you want to see if digital file sharing is possible for your LEA this census), Please email: devereux@sfsu.edu
LEAs that did not report any children with deafblindness over the past
two years were not mailed a census packet this year. If you represent an
LEA that did not report students who are deafblind and now have a
student(s) to report, please visit the census page of the CDBS Web site
at https://cadeafblind.org/census/ Here you will find documents to assist you in reporting.
Ideally the census form should be completed by the “best service
provider,” someone who knows and works closely with the child. However,
anyone with access to the child’s file can complete the form, including
educators, school health personnel, family members, and/or CDBS staff.
Yes. If you are completing or confirming a form, please sign or print your name on the bottom of page two. This person can be different from the “best service provider contact” but should be someone we could get in touch with if there is a question about the form. If you are answering emailed questions and not completing a full form, please indicate who answered the questions. Yes, e-signatures are okay.
While it is possible that smaller Local Education Agencies may not have any students with combined hearing and vision issues, statistically we know that there should be about 1.56 children who are deafblind for every 1,000 receiving special education services. CDBS field staff are available to assist you in your identification efforts.
Funding for specialized services to this population is dependent on having accurate information about how many infants, children and youth in California have both hearing and vision issues. When the state and national legislatures approve funding—and state and federal agencies allocate the funds—census information is used to determine priorities and needs.
Most children who are deafblind have additional disabilities, including intellectual disabilities, orthopedic impairments, health impairments, etc. Please complete a census form for all students who have hearing and vision issues, regardless of the presence or absence of additional disabilities.
Please do include children with sensory impairments that are cortical in nature—such as cerebral (or cortical) visual impairment, central auditory processing disorder, and/or auditory neuropathy—on the census. These students usually require adaptations and modifications to their programs in order for them to succeed. In addition, these hearing and vision issues often need to be considered when developing effective, formal communication systems for these individuals. When in doubt, refer to the functional definition of deafblindness above.
It doesn’t matter which primary disability is identified on the IEP. While California Deafblind Services would like to see all students who have vision and hearing issues identified as deafblind on the IEP (and there are federal regulations regarding this issue), we know that most students who are deafblind are identified under other federal/state primary disability categories, such as “intellectual disability”, “multiple disabilities”, “Deafness”, “visual impairment”, etc.
No. Eligibility for vision and/or hearing impairment services varies from district to district, and definitions are interpreted in many different ways. For example, students with only a mild hearing loss and vision loss should be included in the deafblind census count since a combined mild loss of both senses can create an adverse effect on educational success. In addition, students who are deafblind do not have to meet state criteria since this census and the state count are separate entities (the state count being the number of students in California for whom deafblindness is marked on the IEP as their primary disability).
even if they are not yet receiving services for both vision and hearing.
Knowing a child’s etiology is important for a number of reasons. Maintaining this database allows CDBS staff to make important connections between families. For example, parents of a child with CHARGE syndrome or Usher syndrome might contact CDBS to ask if there are other parents of children with the same syndrome in their area. The census allows CDBS to make these family-to-family connections. Another important reason to know etiology is that the California census information is combined with data from around the country to determine which causes of deafblindness are on the increase or decrease, if there are geographic clusters of students with similar etiologies, etc.
In educational environments, intervener services are provided by an individual, typically a paraeducator, who has received specialized training in deafblindness and the process of intervention. An intervener provides consistent one-to-one support to a student who is deafblind (age 3 through 21) throughout the instructional day. This new question has been added to the bottom of page 1 of the census so that state and federal governments can examine the need for intervener-specific training and/or regulation initiatives.
In educational environments, intervener services are provided by an individual, typically a paraeducator, who has received specialized training in deafblindness and the process of intervention. An intervener provides consistent one-to-one support to a student who is deafblind (age 3 through 21) throughout the instructional day. This new question has been added to the bottom of page 1 of the census so that state and federal governments can examine the need for intervener-specific training and/or regulation initiatives.
If the student is listed as attending a State Special School (California School for the Deaf / Blind) then that campus will receive the form to verify and send back. If the student was reported to be part of a district but also received some services from one of the State Special Schools, then the form would be mailed to the district to verify.
If you did not receive a form and think you should have, please contact the census coordinator, Brian Devereux, at: devereux@sfsu.edu