09/27/2026
PSU mourns the passing of a beautiful teacher in our field, Barbara Miles. Thank you for teaching us about the power of conversations with our students. Rest in peace.
Today, we remember Barbara Miles, a groundbreaking expert and educator in the field of deafblindness. 💙
As a Perkins educator, Barbara leaves a lasting legacy. Across more than 30 years, she served in various roles in our Deafblind School, including as a training and program consultant working with students and educators in Indonesia.
She taught us, in so many ways, about how people who are deafblind use their hands as a window to the world: to feel, touch, explore and communicate. From the hand-under-hand technique to her focus on mutual tactile attention, her approach always emphasized respect and equality, imparting the reverence that human contact deserves.
Barbara’s publication, “Talking the Language of the Hands to the Hands” is a key resource for educators and families around the world, and has been translated into multiple languages. She also worked with the late Marianne Riggio to publish “Remarkable Conversations,” a seminal work on communication development for children who are deafblind that is used globally to train teachers.
This is a tremendous loss for our community, but the impact of Barbara’s work will continue to be felt by generations of students and educators around the world for years to come.
Helen Keller said, "What do I consider a teacher should be? One who breathes life into knowledge so that it takes new form in progress and civilization."
Thank you, Barbara, for breathing life into knowledge – and for helping so many children with disabilities find their place in the world.
