The perception of stress contrasts in deaf subjects was assessed under three conditions—auditory only, tactile only, and combined auditory‐tactile. Test stimuli were three disyllables generated in a two‐stage process: multiple repetitions of each disyllable were produced by a normally hearing speaker using normal or exaggerated stress on either the first or second syllable; the averaged acoustic values for peak amplitude, vowel duration, and peak fundamental frequency for each disyllable were then resynthesized and manipulated to create a stimulus set containing none, one, two, and three of the acoustic cues denoting stress. Subjects were asked to indicate whether stress occurred on the first or second syllable for each stimulus item. Performance was above the level of chance in all three conditions. In the exaggerated stress production mode, performance in the tactile condition exceeded performance in the auditory condition for those stimulus items containing a frequency cue. [Work supported by ♯NS‐17764.]