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Many deaf persons who come into mental health and rehabilitation programs have signifi cant language problems (Glickman, 2009). Poor skills in the spoken language of the community are common and are a natural consequence of being unable to hear the language. However, the language problems we are referring to are evident in American Sign Language (ASL), usually the best language of these persons. In fact, more than half of the deaf patients served on a specialty psychiatric inpatient unit for deaf people, the Deaf Unit at Westborough State Hospital in Massachusetts, were judged by the communication specialist to have severe language dysfl uency in signing (Glickman, 2009). Poor language skills in deaf psychiatric inpatients have been observed in numerous other studies of this group (Altshuler, 1971; Altshuler & Rainer, 1968; Denmark, 1985, 1994; Grinker et al., 1969). Poor language skills are also the fi rst characteristic used to describe the subgroup of deaf persons sometimes called “traditionally underserved” (Dew, 1999; Long, Long, & Ouellette, 1993).
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