The needs of deaf and hearing people with limited functioning can be a challenge for the mental health practitioner to meet. This text provides concrete guidance for adapting best practices in cognitive-behavioral therapy to deaf and hearing persons who are non- or semi-literate, and who have greatly impaired language skills or other cognitive deficits, such as mental retardation, that make it difficult for them to benefit from traditional talk- and insight-oriented psychotherapies. --

Preparing Deaf and Hearing Persons with Language and Learning Challenges for CBT: A Pre-Therapy Workbook presents 12 lessons to guide staff in hospital and community mental health and rehabilitation programs on creating skill-oriented therapy settings when working with people who don’t read well or have trouble with abstract ideas, problem solving, reasoning, attention, and learning. Drawing from the worlds of CBT, current understandings of best practices in psychotherapy, and the emerging clinical specialty of Deaf mental health care, the workbook describes methods for engaging people who are often considered poor candidates for psychotherapy.

This book provides a model for adapting best practices in cognitive-behavioral therapy to consumers whose language and cognitive deficits make it difficult for them to benefit from traditional talk oriented psychotherapy. The book focuses primarily upon the mental health care of those deaf clients, sometimes referred to as "low functioning" or "traditionally underserved," who are particularly difficult to engage in meaningful treatment. Drawing most heavily upon the work of Donald Meichenbaum, Marsha Linehan, and Ross Greene, this book presents adaptations and simplifications of psychotherapy which make it accessible and meaningful for persons often viewed as "poor candidates." The heart of the book is a greatly simplified approach to psychosocial skill training, especially in the domains of coping, conflict resolution and relapse prevention skills, as well as an extensive discussion of "pre-treatment" strategies for engaging clients in mental health care.

Language Deprivation and Deaf Mental Health explores the impact of the language deprivation that some deaf individuals experience by not being provided fully accessible language exposure during childhood. Leading experts in Deaf mental health care discuss the implications of language deprivation for a person’s development, communication, cognitive abilities, behavior, and mental health. Beginning with a groundbreaking discussion of language deprivation syndrome, the chapters address the challenges of psychotherapy, interpreting, communication and forensic assessment, language and communication development with language-deprived persons, as well as whether cochlear implantation means deaf children should not receive rich sign language exposure. The book concludes with a discussion of the most effective advocacy strategies to prevent language deprivation. These issues, which draw on both cultural and disability perspectives, are central to the emerging clinical specialty of Deaf mental health.

Teaching Deaf Learners: Psychological and Developmental Foundations explores how deaf students (children and adolescents) learn and the conditions that support their reaching their full cognitive potential -- or not. Beginning with an introduction to teaching and learning of both deaf and hearing students, Knoors and Marschark take an ecological approach to deaf education, emphasizing the need to take into account characteristics of learners and of the educational context. Building on the evidence base with respect to developmental and psychological factors in teaching and learning, they describe characteristics of deaf learners which indicate that teaching deaf learners is not, or should not, be the same as teaching hearing learners. In this volume, Knoors and Marschark explore factors that influence the teaching of deaf learners, including their language proficiencies, literacy and numeracy skills, cognitive abilities, and social-emotional factors. These issues are addressed in separate chapters, with a focus on the importance to all of them of communication and language. Separate chapters are devoted to the promise of multimedia enhanced education and the possible influences of contextual aspects of the classroom and the school on learning by deaf students. The book concludes by pointing out the importance of appropriate education of teachers of deaf learners, given the increasing diversity of those students and the contexts in which they are educated. It bridges the gap between research and practice in teaching and outlines ways to improve teacher education.

This volume presents a state of the art account of the clinical specialty of mental health care of deaf people. Drawing upon some of the leading clinicians, teachers, administrators, and researchers in this field from the United States and Great Britain, it addresses critical issues from this specialty such as Deaf/hearing cross cultural dynamics as they impact treatment organizations Clinical and interpreting work with deaf persons with widely varying language abilities Adaptations of best practices in inpatient, residential, trauma, and substance abuse treatment for deaf persons Overcoming administrative barriers to establishing statewide continua of care University training of clinical specialists The interplay of clinical and forensic responses to deaf people who commit crimes An agenda of priorities for Deaf mental health research Each chapter contains numerous clinical case studies and places a heavy emphasis on providing practical intervention strategies in an interesting, easy to read style. All mental health professionals who work with deaf individuals will find this to be an invaluable resource for creating and maintaining culturally affirmative treatment with this population.

The Evolution of Cognitive Behavior Therapy: A Personal and Professional Journey with Don Meichenbaum explores the "untold story" of how Cognitive Behavior Therapy emerged and discusses the controversies encountered along the way. This volume will feature a personal account of Don Meichenbaum's contributions from his initial work on self-instructional training with schizophrenics and impulsive children, through his work on stress inoculation training, and his most recent works with traumatized individuals. These previously published papers are complemented with updated papers and accompanying commentary.