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Building up Social-Haptic Signs: The Portuguese Team

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Abstract

Social-haptic communication (SHC) enables interaction for Deafblind and Deaf people with low vision but remains underutilized in Portugal due to geographical dispersion and lack of specialized training. This paper examines work from March to November 2022 within the international Social Haptic Signs project, documenting 24 haptic signs used by Portuguese Deafblind people, contributing to 80 national haptic signs published by the project. It details this pilot initiative’s methodology and aims to advance understanding of SHC’s importance for improving communication accessibility among the Deafblind community in Portugal.


open access | peer reviewed

Submitted: Nov. 7, 2024 | Accepted: Sept. 17, 2025 | Published Feb. 2, 2026 | Language: en

Keywords Social-haptic communication • Deafblind people • Portuguese haptic signs • Teamwork dynamics • Portuguese Deafblind

Copyright © 2026 Cristina Gil, Bruno Mendes, Paula Liques, Orquídea Coelho. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/979-12-5742-007-9/004


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