As the first step in curriculum development, 12 educational programs for young deaf children with learning disabilities and communication problems were studied in order to identify the atypical deaf child. Subjects were 193 children (age range 6 to 14 years) selected from 12 schools for the deaf in New York State. Data was obtained from school records, a battery of tests, teacher rating scales and check lists, and interviews with admissions personnel. General research findings on cognitive development were that 73% of the children had known exogenous causes for their handicap, that mental retardation was widespread in the sample, that the majority of subjects demonstrated severe to profound hearing impairments, that generalized perceptual and memory deficits existed in the sample, that substantial communication problems existed, that teacher ratings for more than half the sample revealed unsatisfactory emotional, social, and classroom adjustment, that use of instructional materials to improve perceptual and motor skills decreased after children were 10 years of age, and that for the portion of students having nonverbal intelligence scores of 90 or above, performance on perceptual and memory tests was normal. (For related documents, see also EC 041 648-50.) (CB)