Once a year he spends about 10 days visiting relatives in Stuttgart in Southern Germany. A reliance on physical contact between communicators has historically constrained the social circles of the deaf-blind to those they can meet face-to-face (or more accurately hand-to-hand) on a regular basis – and even within this relatively small group of people, only those who take the time to learn and practice Lorm can really become part of a deaf-blind individual’s social network.įor instance, Haug’s social circle currently consists of about five people: his mother, Schwengber, teachers, and therapists. But Lorm, and other forms of tactile signing, have their limits. It’s difficult to overstate the importance of Lorm to Haug and Schwengber. It was invented in the nineteenth century by Hieronymus Lorm – an anonymous pseudonym, for Austrian-born poet, journalist, and novelist Heinrich Landesmann – and is still used today by the deaf-blind community in German-speaking countries. So the two invented their own tactile language.Īs Haug and Schwengber grew older, they replaced their private language with one that is more widely understood: Lorm, a tactile alphabet spelled out with strokes to the hand. “It was annoying that he couldn't hear me, and I couldn't write something down,” she says.

“We started to invent languages and forms of communication just because we were kids and we wanted to play,” says Schwengber.

Within the first year of their friendship, nerve damage inflicted by an inherited genetic condition robbed Haug of his sight and hearing. The pair have been friends since childhood. It’s good to keep in touch – something that Edi Haug and Laura Schwengber know only too well.

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