Abstract There is clear evidence that increasing numbers of deaf students are now beginning to enter higher education ( http://www.natdisteam.ac.uk ). However, it is also evident that many of these students enter university presenting at below national norms in terms of their literacy. In short, many pre-lingual deaf students face an incredible language barrier struggling to understand textual material and complete course assignments. For this reason, many deaf students are supported individually by language tutors (LTs) whose role includes helping students prepare for assignments, assisting with planning and organisation of projects, advising students about the presentation of written work, and modifying the language of course materials, examinations and assignment briefs where appropriate. This paper describes the results of a qualitative study designed to investigate the working practices of LTs in one university, in order to provide recommendations for professional practice and prompt the dev...