DiFrancesca, S J

Hurwitz, S N

English

Western Connecticut State University: WestCollections - digitalcommons@wcsu

JADARA 
Volume 3 Number 2 Article 8 
November 2019 
Rehabilitation of Hard core Deaf: Identification of an Affective 
Style 
S J. DiFrancesca 
None 
S N. Hurwitz 
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Recommended Citation 
DiFrancesca, S. J., & Hurwitz, S. N. (2019). Rehabilitation of Hard core Deaf: Identification of an Affective 
Style. JADARA, 3(2). Retrieved from https://repository.wcsu.edu/jadara/vol3/iss2/8 
REHABILITATION OF HARD CORE DEAF:
IDENTIFICATION OF AN AFFECTIVE STYLE
S. J. DiFRANCESCA, Ph.D. and S. N. HURWITZ
It has been within this very decade that the United States
Vocational Rehabilitation Administration earmarked a pro
portion of the deaf population as catastrophically handicapped
in their adj ustment to vocations and society. An outgrowth of
this special concern was the establishment of a small number
of feasibility projects programmed to examine the hypothesis
that existing rehabilitation facilities can adjust their pro
grams to incorporate service to the deaf as well as other re
habilitation clients while using the same physical facilities.
Hitherto the rehabilitation needs of the deaf had been con
sidered as too unique to be dealt .with in conjunction with
differing handicapped population.
This paper is an effort to relate the experiences and con
clusions of the first three yearg, of a rehabilitation program
for the deaf conducted by the St. Louis Jewish Employment
& Vocational Services and supported by the United States
Vocational Rehabilitation (now the Rehabilitation Services)
Administration by research and demonstration grant (RD-
1804-S). The program evolved from the experimental hy
pothesis that rehabilitation techniques demonstrated effec
tive for remedying and enhancing the disposition and behavior
of other handicapped individuals may, with relevant modifica
tion, be useful in the rehabilitation of the deaf person. Ad
ditional major purposes of the program were to identify and
DR. DiFRANCESCA ond MR. HURWITZ are with the JEVS, St. Louis, Missouri.
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DiFrancesca and Hurwitz: Rehabilitation of Hard core Deaf: Identification of an Affective
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REHABILITATION OF HARD CORE DEAF: 35
describe significant characteristics of the client population
in need of such programs, to experiment with and develop re
habilitation techniques appropriate to the deaf and to evalu
ate the effectiveness of provided services.
The population described in this article is not typical of
the deaf population in general or even those deaf individuals
in all rehabilitation programs. The majority of clients served
by the JEVS program has been aptly described as "hard core"
deaf. They have been failures in school, work and society.
Generally they possess no specialized work skills and after re
peated failures in meeting the problems of life have come to
this program for assistance. Their level of competence is
generally too low for successful job placement without train
ing that remediates the developmental deficits they display.
Their rehabilitation must be truly comprehensive, affecting
all major areas of their lives.
The Program Structure
The general administrative outline of the program is not
complicated. The basic staff consists of a coordinator, special
educator, placement counselor and psychologist. Approximate
ly sixty to seventy entering clients are served anmifllly and
additional services are provided to past clients with recurring
problems.
Most clients are from the St. Louis metropolitan area
though some enter from great distances, all referrals come
through state vocational rehabilitation counselors who provide
minimal screening but the project retains full control over ad
missions; any person of employable age with a major hearing
impairment is eligible if he is physically and mentally capable
of independent attendance and functioning in an open com
munity without harming himself or others. The agency main
tains a cadre of staff-selected and supervised foster homes
and uses other forms of residences such as small hotels, board
ing homes, nursing homes and YW-YMCA's. These residences
are used differentially, depending on client needs. Clients are
admitted with the understanding they will spend a TniniTniim
of eight weeks in the program. The Division of Vocational Re
habilitation provides basic living expenses.
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36 REHABILITATION OF HARD CORE DEAF;
There is great variety in the design of individual client
rehabilitation programs but typically the client spends abput
three fourths of his time in a supervised work regime where
deaf persons are integrated among hearing persons with a
variety of handicaps such as motor impairment, cultural de
privation, mental retardation, neurological damage, emotional
disturbance and so on. His workshop supervisors maintain
direction over his behavior. They are essentially production
orientated, but remain in consultation with the program staff
while implimenting each individual's treatment program.
Work supervisors are advised to handle the psycho-social and
dispositional needs of clients by manipulating different var
iables within the work environment such as task assignment,
productivity demands, and so on. The client is paid for his
work on an hourly basis. These wdges constitute a portion of
his allowance that is budgeted for essentials (transportation,
meals, personal items) for which he may be held strictly ac
countable by his counselor. The remaining percentage of the
client's time is devoted to various types of educational, coun
seling or treatment programs of individual or group nature.
Elaboration of various educational and clinical components to
the program will be presented following description of client
characteristics.
Characteristics of the Deaf Poptdation
The demographic profile presented below was compiled
from the first 165 clients enrolled. The time period ranges
frbm June, 1965, through December, 1967. There are no chro
nological trends in the data and the poulation has remained
consistent on the assessed attributes excepting an increased
number of neurologically impaired.
The majority of clients have hearing losses of profound
magnitude. They tend to be equally divided between the sexes
with a very slight predominance of males (53 per cent). They
are predominantly young adults with the greatest age cluster
between sixteen and twenty-five years. A secondary age clus
ter appears towards a much older age group (forty-five to
fifty-eight years). Non-whites are represented on a ratio
considerably higher than their percentages in the national
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DiFrancesca and Hurwitz: Rehabilitation of Hard core Deaf: Identification of an Affective
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REHABILITATION OF HARD CORE DEAF; 37
population. Most clients have never married (seventy-six per
cent). They are typically dependent on their families for all
economic support (fifty-nine per cent) or are otherwise re
cipients of welfare (seventeen per cent) or institutional (ten
per cent) support. Family instability is reflected in the high
percentage of one-parent homes (forty-seven per cent). School
education starts somewhat later (age seven years) compared
to norms of the deaf population, but school tenure is about
average for deaf students. Approximately half of the clients
attended public residential deaf schools; fifteen per cent re
ceive no appreciable education. For those who completed
school, the average achievement level remains at the fourth
grade level in both reading and arithmetic. Intellectual abil
ity (WAIS PIQ) averages to be at the very lower limit of the
average range. Ten per cent of clients achieved above-average
intelligence scores. Manual dexterity based on Purdue Peg-
board Industrial Norms is below average. Six per cent of
clients entered the program directly from long residence in
mental hospitals or training schools.
Prominent amongst program findings, however, is that it
is not lack of innate functional capabilities that limit clients.
They do have sufficient intelligence, motor and coordination
skill and motivation to work at a competitive level. It is their
deficient social and emotional functioning that stultiiHes
achievement and precludes employment. There is no lack in
literature of descriptions of the social, emotional and voca
tional problems of the non-achieving deaf. The project has rts
share of clients who are grossly immature, dependent, unas
sertive, impulsive, fearful, and otherwise underdeveloped.
These same problems characterize other malfunctioning indi
viduals who are not deaf and who are especially prevelant
among rehabilitation clients.
Affective Approach to Learning and Problem Solution
Though, overtly, the same limiting behavioral charac
teristics appear in our deaf clients there does seem to be a
unique dynamic involved that is more particular to the deaf
client's personality. Project research is yet attempting to
clarify this dimension and understand its implications for re-
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38 REHABILITATION OF HARD CORE DEAF:
habilitation. We notice that deaf clients differ from other re
habilitation populations in that they appear more disposed to
relate and solve problems of life on the basis of their feelings
or affect. Deaf clients seem to over-personalize and have less
er ability to see beyond their personal frame of reference.
They tend to weigh materials and stimuli in terms of the im
mediate value it holds for them, how it makes them feel.
Their response to problems is more immediate and unreflec-
tive, steered more by their own affective needs than objective
situaltional demands and realities. This affective style of re
sponding seems to be more of a way or style of life for deaf
clients, perhaps because in their development the primary
feedback they receive from their environment consists of the
affective and demonstrative response of others. The deaf in
dividual's main communication media is the language of signs
which is a bodily language highly charged vdth affective com
ponents. He learns to receive and relate information by way
of a great stress on feeling. This in itself is a good thing for
it is a useful and very human source of knowledge, but feel
ings are rooted in the body and, if they are over-emphasized,
lead to a high amount of subjectivity. There is no lack of cog
nitive capacity among the deaf clients. They are certainly as
capable of as good a quality of higher order thinking as any
body. Research and observation has demonstrated this. The
deaf clients do have intellectual power. It is noted however
that in a greater variety of instances they "feel" their way
through problems rather than think. As to the extent affec-
tual responses are immediate and demand immediate recog
nition too, the deaf client lives 4n the immediate present, and
chooses not to make long-range goals. He leams best what
has immediate reinforcing value and tends not to detach and
depersonalize himself to further objective understanding of
life situations. Thus he makes the learning process more dif
ficult for himself as he does not reflect or contemplate but
thinks more impulsively, preferring knowledye only of im
mediate pragmatic value. It is not that he is unable to think
more abstractly, but his need for immediate feedback, graH-
fication, and reinforcement leads him to function concretely.
The prevalence and intensity of this djmamic appears to be
uniquely characteristic of the program population of the hard-
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DiFrancesca and Hurwitz: Rehabilitation of Hard core Deaf: Identification of an Affective
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REHABILITATIIN OF HARD CORE DEAF: 39
core deaf. Rehabilitation and treatment programs must be so
designed to make best use of the deaf clients affective style
of responding.
Orientation and Modes of Treatment
Program research stressed the development of clinical
classification systems to categorize and diagnose the various
personality and characterological syndromes demonstrated
by clientele. Traditionally utilized differential classifications
such as "emotionally disturbed deaf," "mentally retarded
deaf," and other single variable systems, were discarded as
overly generalized and misleading. We attempted to view be
havioral responses or syndromes in terms of their adequacy
or competency in coping with life problems. The program
adapted a neo-behavioristic competency model which generally
prescribes that reinforcement principles be used to shape or
mold less competent behaviors toward more competent re
sponse patterns. Interpersonal aspects of counseling supple
ment reinforcement techniques. The hypothesis that deaf
clients maintain an affective and personalized response style
as delineated above contains some treatment implications. It
suggests that reinforcement principles are quite effective as
they provide the element of immediate feedback sought by
clients. Appropriate behaviors and expectancies may be ini
tiated in the workshop and special training sessions but gener
ally it is the counselor's role to reinforce those behaviors, lead
ing the client to consider alternatives and to view problems
from an objective form of reference. The counselor then pro
vides emotional support while striving to serve as a reflector
of reality, moving the client from his highly personalized
frame of reference. Efforts are made then to assist clients in
realizing the personal impact they make in situations and to
teach them to think with full consideration of objective de
mands. Group counseling sessions are good vehicles for pro
viding clients with objective feedback on how others see them
as well as forcing them to attend and respond to the needs of
others.
Basic remedial education is also provided; herein empha
sis is placed on providing functional skills necessary for in-
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40 REHABILITATION OF HARD CORE DEAF:
dependent living. Such subjects as budgeting, use of transpor
tation, communication, hygiene, use of free time, etc., are
given attention. Community and social activities are planned.
It is often necessary to work with clients evenings and week
ends to provide direction in deficient but critical areas of their
lives.
The mainstay of vocational orientation training and work
readiness training is provided in the workshop. Again we
stressed that clients do possess the basic functional skills for
employment but need direction in overcoming personal and
social deficiencies as they develop growth toward dependable
work habits. Many are placed directly into employment.
Where potential is indicated, clients are directed to vocational-
skill training. Such vocational training is obtained through
special vocational training schools or on-the-job training plans
arranged with an employer in the community.
Program Results
The ultimate criterion of the effectiveness of a service
program of this nature lies in its record of outcomes. We
have at this time, only one objective measurement for judg
ing results: employment performance. Although most clients
have demonstrated greatly improved capability for autono
mous functioning, reliable measurements in this area are yet
to be obtained. A scale measuring degree of autonomous per
formance in critical areas of job-related social behavior has
been developed but requires further standardization. Approxi
mately 66 per cent of clients who enter the program are placed
in and successfully maintain employment. Twelve per cent of
clients do receive vocational-skill training. About 7 per cent
of clients are placed in sheltered emplojrment. The remainder,
or one out of three, were considered unemployable at comple
tion of the program or were referred to the psychiatric or to
state training school institutions from which they came.
More difficult to estimate is the number of persons who
have proven capable of relatively long-term stabilized adjust
ment to their work. A realistic appraisal of outcome would
have to evaluate such factors as job changes and the reason
for change, reality factors that apply to the retention of low
level jobs, and the problem of accurate collection of data on
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DiFrancesca and Hurwitz: Rehabilitation of Hard core Deaf: Identification of an Affective
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REHABILITATION OF HARD CORE DEAF: 41
persons who return to their home communities.
The average intramural treatment tenure for competi
tively employed persons is eleven to twelve weeks; the average
intramural treatment tenure for clients placed in sheltered
employment is six months. However, these figures obscure the
prolonged period of follow-up frequently required for main
taining continued growth and adjustment. We conclude that
the great majority of clients appear to possess sufficient in
nate skills for some level of employment, assuming they can
be brought to the point of applying these skills appropriately
and consistently. Vocational training for the hard-core deaf,
in tself, is most effectively provided through programming
that assists clients in overcoming their inadequate interper
sonal and social adjustment factors.
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Rehabilitation of Hard core Deaf: Identification of an Affective Style

https://repository.wcsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1418&context=jadara

Rehabilitation of Hard core Deaf: Identification of an Affective Style

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