[Competence in verbal communication of deaf adults in Austria. I: On the intelligibility of spoken language].

Intelligibility of spoken language of deaf adults was assessed by hearing persons. The test procedure was intended to get as close as possible to an authentic communication situation. 5 of 6 deaf speakers are not intelligible to naive listeners. Furthermore, the listeners tend to highly overestimate their understanding of the meaning of the utterances heard. Distorting written reproductions are frequent. There are significant differences between the ability of comprehension of each of the hearing persons. The necessity of visual communication systems and -helps is stressed by the deficits in spoken language found by the study at hand.