A 49-year-old brain-damaged, dysarthric patient was given in instructional program in sign language communication tailored to the needs of his particular disability. The man learned a large lexicon of signs and showed improvement in his sicial behavior over the nine-month period of the study. The patient’s success in acquiring a sign language vocabulary must be viewed in the light of a medical evaluation of severe cerebral damage, an aphasic condition, and partial paralysis, all resulting from an accident that occurred more than ten years before. This improvement is in contrast with his past history of failure to respond to speech therapy.
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Bonvillian et al. (1978) studied this question.