Language sampling in deaf children: a comparison of oral and signed communication modes

Fourteen deaf children (eight from total communication and six from oral classes) and seven non-hearing-impaired peers were given a number of tasks designed to elicit spontaneous language. These tasks included retelling stories they had previously read aloud (read), retelling stories told to them with accompanying pictures (told), and responding to questions about pictures (pictures). Traditional language sampling indices of verbal output, syntactic structure, and communicativeness were derived, and differences among groups and methods of elicitation were ascertained. Results favored hearing children on all measures. When comparing the two deaf groups, few differences emerge on measures of verbal output and communicativeness. On syntactic measures, the oral group performed significantly better on a number of tasks. These differences were discussed in terms of the impact of communication mode on language instruction for deaf children.