Historically, rehabilitation clinics concerned with assisting those who have acquired a profound hearing loss have worked to promote practices that legitimate a culture centred on hearing and speech. Their practice of rehabilitation indicates a lack of appreciation of the social and identity issues confronting deafened adults. In consequence, deafened people have to carve out a sense of identity by developing associations and communicative strategies that validate their own way of engaging the social. Such practice encompasses the development of a dual or multiple identity centred on differing forms of communicative practice.