ABSTRACT
Unlike families consisting solely of hearing members who communicate in the same language, families in which there is a deaf member present unique challenges for the therapist. For many deaf persons who have a prelingual,1 profound,2 or bilateral3 hearing loss, the efficacy of receptive comprehension of spoken English via speech reading is grossly inadequate (Liben, 1978; Perry & Silverman, 1978; Pollard, 1998; Pollard, Miner, & Cioffi, 2000; Vernon & Andrews, 1990). It is, therefor, likely that manual communication would be a deaf family member’s primary and preferred means of fully understanding discourse in any environment, in particular, within the family (Lane et al., 1996; Moores, 1987). Because approximately 90% of deaf persons have hearing parents and siblings (Schein & Delk, 1974; Vernon & Andrews, 1990) and many families resort to spoken communication as
opposed to achieving proficiency in manual communication (Lane et al., 1996; Rawlings, 1971; Stuckless & Birch, 1966), there is often a linguistic communication barrier within the family.
