Recent studies have shown that it is possible to foster affective involvement between people with congenital deafblindness and their communication partners. Affective involvement is crucial for well-being and it is important to know whether it can also be fostered with people who have congenital deafblindness and intellectual disabilities.
Methods. This study used a multiple-basleine design to examine whether an intervention based on the Intervention Model for Affective Involvement would i) increase affective involvement between four participants with cogenital deafblindness and intellectual disabilities and their 13 communication partners and ii) increase the participants'positive emotions and decrease their negative emotions.
Results. In all cases, dyadic affective involvement increased, the participants'very positive emotions also increased and the participants negative emotions decreased.
Conclusion. The results indicate that communication partners of persons with congenital deafblindness and intellectual disabilities can be successfully trained to foster affective involvement.