Training Undergraduate Social Workers for Work with the Deaf

Abstract

An undergraduate social work curriculum has been enriched to include specific content for students training to work with deaf clients. The unique aspects of deafness examined in this paper include the characteristics of the deaf population, communication skills, and sensitivity to the minority status of deaf people. Content in each of these areas is reviewed as an illustration of specialty material in a generalist curriculum and as a plea for social work education to become more responsive to the special service needs of the deaf.