It’s difficult to overstate the importance of Lorm to Haug and Schwengber. But Lorm, and other forms of tactile signing, have their limits. 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.

For instance, Haug’s social circle currently consists of about five people: his mother, Schwengber, teachers, and therapists. Once a year he spends about 10 days visiting relatives in Stuttgart in Southern Germany. “The first five days they need to practice Lorming, so they can remember the letters, and by the tenth day when they are quite fast, it's time to go back home,” explains Schwengber.

But these drawbacks might soon disappear, if a new invention by Tom Bieling is commercialised.

Tactile translation

Bieling, a researcher at the Design Lab in Berlin, has developed a glove kitted out with fabric pressure-sensors. By translating a tactile hand touch alphabet into digital text, the mobile glove could eliminate the necessity of hand-to-hand physical contact for deaf-blind communication. Even better, because a great deal of online communication is text-based, the glove could act as a translating device that allows people who are deaf-blind to communicate freely with anyone – and for anyone to communicate with them.

It's an invention reminiscent of the outlandish gadgets seen in James Bond movies, and it won Bieling first prize in the 2014 Falling Walls Lab competition – a kind of TED Talks meets Dragon’s Den – held annually in Berlin.