What about Rehabilitation?
Recommendations
We asked the people we
interviewed if they got any help
after the stroke. We found that:
Deaf people who have strokes
need more help, especially with
communication problems
Most had
physiotherapy, eg to
help with walking.
We need an outreach
team of specialists to
work with Deaf stroke
patients. All members of
this team must use BSL.
DEAF
STROKE
Lots of people helped this research.
Thanks to:
Most had
occupational
therapy, eg to
help with dressing
and cooking
All the Deaf people and their families who took
part in the interviews and testing.
Members of Deaf clubs who tried out our tests.
All the Deaf people and professionals who helped
us to find people who had strokes.
Very few had speech
and language therapy
to help with signing
and communication
problems.
Pr o j e c t
This leaflet was supported by a generous
donation from the family of Mary Cox, who died
in June 2002, after several strokes. Her family
hopes this leaflet will help others in the Deaf
community and their families.
We surveyed all the Speech &
Language Therapists in Britain.
We found that:
Please contact us at:
very few therapists saw Deaf people
after stroke
most therapists and their assistants
could not sign
not all therapists knew how to book BSL
interpreters
the
Designed and illustrated by The Attic Design Studio
A ic
Email: info@attic-d.co.uk
Design Studio
The Project Team: Bencie Woll, Alice Thacker,
Jane Marshall, Jo Atkinson.
Deaf Stroke Project, Dept of Language
and Communication Science, City University,
London EC1V 0HB
@ E-mail:
j.marshall@city.ac.uk
Fax:
0207 040 8577
For more information, look at our website at
http://www.city.ac.uk/deafstrokes
City University
London
St George's Hospital
Medical School
UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
What did we find out?
Deaf Stroke Project
The Deaf Stroke Project was based at
City University and St George's
Hospital Medical School. It was
funded by the Wellcome Trust.
Who took part in the
research?
We interviewed 48
Deaf people who
had a stroke
Sign Language and Stroke
We created many new tests of sign
language comprehension and
production.
Here are some of the things we found
out with our tests:
But, they often find visual tasks difficult
People with strokes
on the left side of the
brain often have
problems with sign
language.
Some could not draw
They might not
understand signs.
We visited 12 of
these people
several times.
We did tests with
them, to find out if
their sign language
was affected by
the stroke
The people we
visited live all over
Britain
People with strokes
on the right side of
the brain have fewer
problems with sign
language.
Some could not
recognise faces
These visual problems affected
signing. For example:
They might not be
able to produce signs.
Some of these people could still use
gesture and mime.
Some people missed
sign language
information on the
face. They didn't
know if someone
was asking a
question or making a negative face.
These results show that sign language,
like speech, is usually processed by the
left side of the brain.
These results show that visual skills
of the right side of the brain are
important for sign language.